Monday, May 2, 2016 B DECCAN HERALD 3

Metro New carry bags claim place leftby much-maligned plastic. P4 »

GENERALPrakash Arts Private Limited andBBMP: Inauguration of ‘First Foot-Over Bridge’ with two escalators andstaircase by Transport Minister Ra-malinga Reddy, Minister K J George,participates, near Forum Mall, Adugo-di Main Road, 10 am.Janaseva Samsthe: Presentation of‘Sri Nadaprabhu Kempegowda’ awardby Sri Kumara ChandrashekaranathaMahaswami, Vishwa Okkaliga mutt,Kengeri, Deputy Mayor S P Hemal-atha Gopalaiah, participate, NayanaAuditorium, Kannada Bhavana, Ravi-ndra Kalakshetra premises, 6.30 pm.Sichrem: Free Human Rights coun-selling and legal advice for victimsof Human Rights violation, call25473922/ 25804072/3/ 9449816942 between 3.30 and 5.30 pm(Mon to Fri).

CULTURALAlliance Francaise de Bengaluru:Vernissage of the first exhibition ofthe second series of the ‘Young TalentProgram’ curated by Franck Barthele-my and Balan Nambiar, ‘BlurringBoundaries’ by Priyanka Ella Lorena,Alliance Francaise de premises, GenThimmaiah Road, Opp UNI Building,Vasanthnagar, 7 pm. (Free Entry)Sree Seshadripuram RamasevaSamithi: Music by students of KensriSchool Academy of Excellence, 5.15pm; vocal recital by Vidushi SankariKrishnan and party, Kuvempu RangaMandira, Sheshadripuram Collegecampus, Sheshadripuram, 6.30 pm.KYNKYNY Art and Rukmini Sodhiand Rati Ghose: ‘Songs of Bengal’Group exhibition of paintings by con-temporary artists from East Indianstates, KYNKYNY Art Gallery, No 104,Embassy Square, above Ganjam Jew-ellers, Infantry Road, 10 am to 7 pm.Rangapanchami (Rangachethana)and Dept of Kannada and Culture:Janapara Samskruthi Utsav-2016 -Rangageethe by Ramachandra Hada-padh; staging of play ‘Sahadeva’ byRanganiranthara, Bengaluru, play-wright by Basavaraja Sulerepalya, di-rected by Joseph John, Kalagrama,Mallathahalli, behind Bengaluru Uni-versity, Opp RajaRajeshwari Theatre,Off Kengeri Outer Ring Road, nearJnanabharathi Campus, 6 pm.Sri Vani Kala Kendra: Dance drama‘Padmavathi Srinivasa Parinaya’ bySri Natya Bharathi Trust, 4th ‘B’ Main,3rd Stage, Basaveshwaranagar,6.30 pm.Sree Ramaseva Mandali: Sree Ra-manavami national music festival -music by Jayanthi Kumaresh and par-ty, Old Fort High School Grounds,Chamarajapet, 6.30 pm.Shrishti Center of Performing Arts

In city today

and Institute of Dance Therapy:Shrishti World Festival of Dance Dra-ma and Music 2016 - Remembering‘Maya Didi’ Kathak Day - Arunima SenGupta, Pravin Joshi, A V Satya-narayana, Prathama Prasad Rao,Soma Gosh and Shwetha SaiVenkatesh, participate, RavindraKalakshetra, J C Road, 5 pm.Indian Institute of Cartoonists: S VPadmanabha’s cartoon exhibition, In-dian Cartoon Gallery, Midford House,Midford Garden, off M G Road, TrinityCircle, 11 am to 6 pm.Sree Rama Temple: Gamaka Vachanaby Vid Nirmala Prasanna andVyakyana by Vid A V Prasanna, 9thcross, 14th main, Vyalikaval, 6.30 pm.

RELIGIOUSSree Ramakrishna Seva Trust: Dis-course on Bhaja Govindam by SwamiAbhaya Chaitanya, Sree Veeran-janeya Swamy temple communityHall, Yelahanka Upanagar, 6.30 pm.Sri Shankara Jayanthi Mandali: Dis-course on ‘Bhagavathadalli TatwaVicharagalu’ by Vid Dileep Bellave,Shankara Krupa Road, 16th Cross, 3rdBlock, Jayanagar, 6 pm.Sai Gitanjali, Sri Sathya Sai SevaKshethra: Bhajans, Sai Gitanjalipremises, 21st Main, 8th Cross, 2ndPhase, J P Nagar, 6.15 pm.Malleswaram Desika Sabha: Kalak-shepams by Vid V S KarunakaranSwamy on ‘Tatparya Chandrika’ 8 am;Thiruvoimozhi, Saroja Kuteer, 6thmain, Malleswaram, 6.30 pm.Srimadananda TheerthaPravachana Samithi: Discourse on“Mahabharatha Thaathparya Nir-naya” Chapter 5 and 6 by Pradhum-nacharya Joshi, Sri Raghavendraswa-mi Mutt premises, AmarajyothiNagar, 7 pm.

FORECAST: Partly cloudy sky.

(Summary of observations

recorded at 5.30 pm).

TEMPERATURES

Maximum 37.3 C

Minimum 24.4 C

Rainfall Nil

Humidity 25 pc

Sunrise 5.58 am

Sunset 6.35 pm

Moonrise 2.07 am

Moonset 2.17 pm

City weather

Jagadish Angadi

BENGALURU: The police areset to introduce Area TrafficControl System (ATCS) inBengaluru to ensuresmoother traffic and lowerpollution.

Under the system, all trafficsignals in a designated area willbe connected to a control roomequipped with necessary hard-ware and software. The signalswill send information about ac-tual congestion on a road. Thesoftware will analyse the infor-mation to finalise timings to beset on each signal. The revisedtimingwillberelayedtothesig-nalsandthesamewillbeflashedat the traffic intersection.

The ATCS will enable roadusers to reach the last signallight in a particular zone at thefastestpossibletime. Itwillalsoevenlydistributecongestiononthe road, senior IPS officer MA Saleem, who was until re-cently AdditionalCommission-er of Police (Traffic), told Dec-can Herald.

“The system will be intro-duced in a few months in the

central business district underthe B-Trac project. It will en-sure some relief to road usersascongestionwillbeevenlydis-tributed on all roads in theCBD,” he said. He continued,“The timings at each traffic sig-nal will vary depending on thecongestion at every junction.Morethe congestion at atrafficjunction longer the waitingtime and vice versa.”

AccordingtoSaleem,thepo-lice in England and Australiahave achieved a higher successrateintrafficmanagementwiththe ATCS and the same model

would be followed in Bengalu-ru. A survey will be conductedbefore the ATCS is introducedin Bengaluru, he said.

The police have roped in HP Khincha, chairman of Kar-nataka State Innovation Coun-cilandanadvisorunderB-Trac,to introduce the ATCS.

Prof Khincha said a surveyof traffic patterns at a designat-ed area would be conducted toidentify difficult points likenumber of cross roads joiningthe main road and the contin-uous flow of traffic on a partic-ular road.Policepersonnelreg-ulating traffic at a junctionwould be trained in the newsystem so that they feel morecomfortable, he added.

The ATCS was first intro-duced in Pune about five yearsago, covering 37 signals. Theimpact study before and afterthe ATCS showed smootherflow of traffic and lower pollu-tion levels. The Centre for De-velopment of Advanced Com-puting has developed theindigenous software calledCOSICOFT for the ATCS,Khincha said.DH News Service

Waiting timeat signals setto reflect actual traffic flow

Cops to introducenewsysteminCBDtoreducecongestion,pollution

Signal lights will be linked to a control room, sending it real-time information about congestion on roads. DH PHOTO

class and the release of arrest-ed garment workers.

In response to their de-mands,ChiefMinisterSiddara-maiah in a programme hostedby Indian National TradeUnion Congress, assured sup-port. He said hewill consult thepolice and see if any innocentgarment workers werearrested.

‘Wrong decision’The chief minister also said thewrong decision taken by theUnion government had result-ed in violent protests.

“The Centre had taken sucha decision without consultingthe working class. It shows thecapitalistic nature of the gov-ernment,” he said and addedthat a few miscreants took theopportunity to damage publicproperty and jump the law.

This should not have hap-

pened, he said. Later, LabourMinister P T ParameshwarNaik said the government hasdecided to revise the minimumsalary of Rs 10,500 in 27 jobsfor labourers.

No other state has done this,he claimed.

Property workersIn a separate programme,CREDAI Bengaluru observedMay Day by organising a pro-gramme for workers acrossprojects of CREDAI memberreal estate developmentorgan-isations.

The event saw over 800labourers from variousbuilders like Brigade Group,Puravankara Projects, TotalEnvironment, CenturyBuildersetctakepart invariousgames, the press releasestated.DH News Service

On May Day, trade unions callfor release of garment workers

BENGALURU: Demonstra-tions and rallies by tradeunions and employees’ as-sociations at several placesin the city on Sundaymarked May Day.

The recurring theme at allthese demonstrations was ademand to withdraw casesagainst garment workers whowere arrested following violentprotests in the city in mid-April.

In separate rallies, membersofCITUandAITUCdemandedbetter facilities for the working

Naveen Menezes

BENGALURU: Exponentialand unbridled growth in realestate in Bengaluru has a di-rect bearing on environ-ment and human health.Buildings have come up inplaces where there wereonce trees or open spaces.What if this continues tohappen even on the periph-ery of Namma Bengaluru?What are its long-term im-plications on the ecosys-tem?

A study conducted by the In-dian Institute of Science (IISc)presents an alarming picture.It shows 525% growth in built-

upareainthelastfourdecades,78% decline in vegetation 79%decline in water bodies. Theseare not just figures, but thelakesandtreesthatsurroundedyou have quietly disappearedas a result of the urban sprawl.

‘Senseless growth’Prof T V Ramachandra of theCentre for Ecological Sciencesat the IISc calls it ‘senselessgrowth.

What’s the point earningbetter when the food that youeat is adulterated? As a resultof unplanned urbanisation,Bengaluru is going to be an un-liveable and dead city in thenext five years, he said.

It was not the same case be-fore. Bengaluru was the mostsought-after among big citiesgiven its pleasant climate andthe easy availability of land, adecent economy and low-keypolitics.

Urban expert Ashwin Ma-heshblames the Bangalore De-velopmentAuthority(BDA)fornot coming out with a sectoralplan.

“The BDA has become anagency which facilitates landdeals for the benefit of corruptpoliticians.Peoplefeel itshouldbe closed down,” he said.

Environmentalist YellappaReddy said, “The governmentis not competent enough to

foresee the future implicationsof the present growth. There isno proper policy on land useand water. Land is being ex-ploited on the whims and fan-cies of the politicians.”

He urged the government touse 40,000 acres of evictedland for community benefitssuch as creating lung space,water bodies and playgrounds.

How to decongestProf Ramachandra said thegovernment must take neces-sary steps to decongest Ben-galuru. Besides banning newindustries in the city, the gov-ernment should make sureother districts get these eco-

nomic benefits, he added.

‘Government must act’“It’s disturbing to see privatedevelopers dominate govern-ment decisions. The norm tokeep at least 15-20 % of the cityas open space is ignored,stormwater drains and waterbodies have been narrowed. Atleast now, the governmentshould wake up and get is pri-oritiesrighttomakeBengalurua sustainable city,” he said.

Architect Najeeb Khan is ofthe opinion that the govern-ment should create enough fa-cilities in villages to minimisemigration.DH News Service

‘Bengaluru will be an unliveable, dead city in 5 years’Experts present a grim picture as real estate boom grips the city

Bengaluru has become a big concrete jungle, with few open spaces and little tree cover. DH PHOTO

Womanarrestedfor‘harassing’advocateBENGALURU: A woman whohad attempted to stage aprotest in front of the office ofDG&IGP Om Prakash on Sat-urday, alleging cheating byhim and his family, was arrest-ed on Sunday in a differentcase.

Rajeshwari was arrested bythe Kanakapura police basedon a complaint filed by advo-cate Sampangiramaiah.

The advocate had alleged inhis complaint that Rajeshwarirepeatedly called him on thephone and harassed him.

Atrocity casesSampangiramaiah had en-sured that Rajeshwari got bailin an SC/ST atrocity casesagainst her in the Mahalaksh-mi Layout and Rajajinagar po-lice stations.

The advocate said that thewoman had come to his houseand created a scene there.

The police registered a caseagainst Rajeshwari and arrest-ed her.DH News Service

LISTEN TO US All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) activists take out a rally from BanappaPark to Government Arts College on Sunday to mark May Day. DH PHOTO

Alsoseekwithdrawalofcasesagainst them

SENIOR IPS OFFICERM A SALEEM:The Area Traffic Con-trol System (ATCS) willbe introduced in thecentral business dis-trict under the B-Tracproject. It will ensurerelief to road users ascongestion will beevenly distributed onall roads in the CBD.

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