Bangalore: When Bangalore decided to catch up with the much delayed imitation of the mall culture in 2004 (with Forum Mall), the city went into a frenzy. Having got the taste of it, now, the culture is no more a craze, but more of a pain for surrounding residents and commuters.
One of the main cause of concern in areas near shopping malls is the increasing traffic snarls. In 2004, when the first mall opened, the population of Bangalore was 60 lakhs, which has increased to about 85 lakhs. Parallely, the growth of vehicles have also increased. The number of motor vehicles registered in Bangalore was 21 lakhs in December 2004. Today, Bangalore Urban has 40 lakhs vehicles.
Reports surfaced in the year 2007 that the Bruhat Bangalore Mahangara Palike (BBMP) would take initiatives to make traffic non objection certificate (NOC) mandatory from the traffic department and will make this a provision in the amended by-laws for mall developers in the city. To everybody’s disappointment, the proposal still remains on paper.
The Mayor, Dr Venkatesh Murthy of BBMP, recently declared in a council meet that no malls will be constructed in a locality without the permission of the people in the vicinity. Thus the town planning standing committees will consult the public while giving approval for the construction of a mall within the jurisdiction of BBMP. But why has the BBMP not made a NOC from the traffic department mandatory?
When City Express contacted the Mayor Venkatesh Murthy, he said, “The mall owners are responsible for taking the permission from the pollution control Board, traffic department and then only the town planning committee of BBMP passes the permission to construct a mall.”
However, a contradicting statement came cross when we spoke to Additional Commissioner of the Bangalore Traffic Department Dr M A Saleem. He said, “Since last one year, I have not seen anyone coming to Bangalore Traffic Department seeking permission for construction of a shopping mall.”
Although no such procedural structure is followed by the BBMP, Dr Saleem feels that in order to curb the increasing traffic menace in the city, there is a dire need on the part of the BBMP to make NOC from the traffic department compulsory or produce a Traffic Management Plan (TMP) by mall developers.
Ideally, a traffic management plan needs to be drafted suggesting the entry, exit points and driveways, however this has not been followed. The chairperson of Town Planning Standing Committee, Purushotham told City Express, “Two days before we had a discussion on the increasing traffic issues near the malls. I will raise the issue again in the council and pass a resolution to make traffic NOC mandatory.”
The Great Bangalore Mall Boom
Today Bangalore has a total number of 107 malls and of these, there are only 43 malls in BBMP limits, as per revenue records. The 10 big malls of India are in Bangalore. There are 21 malls in the city with a floor area of more than 50,000 sqft. BBMP is collecting only Rs 11 crore as tax from these malls, whereas the actual collection should be more than Rs 140 crore.
Orion Mall near Bellary Road: “The parking for the two-wheelers is separate from the parking for the cars and is also far from the mall. This is creating chaos at the entrance of the mall. The car park is air conditioned; what an irony, when the whole of Bangalore is going through a power crisis,” said a Bangalorean on a social networking site.
Mantri Mall, Malleswaram: “By 4 pm in the evening, the Mantri mall puts up a sign board saying ‘parking is full’. One can see hundreds of vehicles, both two-wheelers and four-wheelers being parked in the adjacent roads, creating traffic jam, which amounts to about 45 minutes of travel for a short distance of even half a kilometre,” says Mukut D, who works for an event management company.
Meenakshi Mall, Bannerghatta Road: “The mall fails to meet the parking demand. Almost every weekend, half of the vehicles are parked outside the mall,” said Dheeraj Kanchan, a businessman.
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