Bengaluru citizens have launched an online and on-ground campaign against the proposed Bengaluru elevated corridors, urging Chief Minister D K Shivakumar to cancel the projects and redirect the Rs 13,000-crore allocation towards sustainable transport solutions.
The campaign was launched by residents from different parts of the city and focuses on the proposed 75-km elevated road corridors being taken up by Bengaluru Smart Infrastructure Limited, or B-SMILE. Around 50 residents of Indiranagar gathered at CMH Park on Sunday to discuss the projects and formulate demands.
The group called for the cancellation of tenders and a halt to work on the elevated corridors. It also demanded that the Rs 13,000-crore mobility budget be reallocated within 90 days, based on recommendations from the Indian Institute of Science and through a transparent process.
The third demand is the immediate operationalisation of the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority, or BMLTA. The authority is intended to provide an institutional framework for coordinating transport planning and administration in the city.
The campaign has also launched a dedicated website, deardk.com, featuring an open letter addressed to Shivakumar. The letter asks the chief minister to reconsider the government’s stated push for elevated corridors and argues that additional flyovers inside Bengaluru would not resolve traffic congestion.
“Building more flyovers inside Bengaluru city is wrong. The upcoming flyover projects will not fix traffic; they will ruin our city. You must stop it,” the website says.
The campaign’s online statement further argues that there is sufficient evidence that flyovers do not improve congestion and describes the proposed expenditure as a waste of taxpayers’ money. Its demands centre on redirecting mobility spending towards alternatives described by the group as sustainable transport solutions.
Architect Pravar, who was quoted in the campaign’s discussion, said there was enough evidence to show that flyovers would not improve congestion. The supplied report did not identify the specific Indian Institute of Science recommendations cited by the campaign or provide details of the proposed elevated corridors’ alignment, tender schedule or construction status.
The campaign’s demands place the proposed corridors within a wider debate over how Bengaluru should allocate public funds for mobility and whether transport decisions should be coordinated through a metropolitan authority. The group has called for the government to act within 90 days on the proposed reallocation and has urged the chief minister to stop the projects.
