Here's why North Bengaluru Residents are Saying No to a New Power Plant

Bengaluru: A 370MW gas-based power plant is coming up in North Bengaluru’s Yelahanka — a Karnataka government project that could meet the increasing power demands of the city. The residents, however, are resisting it, citing potential environmental and health hazards due to the plant’s proximity to apartment complexes, schools, two lakes and defence installations in and around Yelahanka.

The project sits on the same site where a diesel power plant sat for two decades. Environmental violation cases had forced the latter’s shutdown in 2013.

In June this year, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had laid the foundation stone for the Karnataka Power Corporation Limited’s latest project, which is expected to be ready by March 2018.

According to an online petition filed by residents — that has over 800 signatures — the project is less than 300 metres away from apartment complexes, with over 5,000 families and villages in the vicinity. The site is flanked by the Yelahanka and Puttenhalli lakes on either sides.

Suresh Mittal, a senior citizen and a resident of Heritage Estate apartments said, “I am a retired person. I shifted from the main city to Yelahanka thinking it’d be cleaner and less noisy. The power plant is going to emit pollutants and there will be noise next door”.

The site was declared an industrial zone more than two decades ago, at a time when Yelahanka was considered a distant suburb, away from the city. “We have taken all the NOCs for the plant. It is in a secure place,” Karnataka Energy Minister D K Shivakumar told CNN-News18 in a telephonic interview. “It is our own land. We will not harm the lakes,” he said.

Though the project has got the nod from authorities including the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA), the petition, addressed to the National Green Tribunal chairman, says the Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL) misused the approvals, and that it needs an urgent review.

“There are over 3 lakh people staying around this 25-acre plot. Even if it is an industrial zone, the government must acknowledge the fact that there are senior citizens and several schools nearby,” Balasundaram Athreya, one of the online petitioners, said.

The petitioners plan to formally approach the Chennai bench of the National Green Tribunal soon.