Published Aug 26, 2026 | 5:10 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 26, 2026 | 5:10 PM
Surya said the bill could place Bengaluru's already limited green spaces at risk of exploitation.
Synopsis: Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya and environmentalist AN Yellappa Reddy have urged Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to return the Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) (Amendment) Bill, 2026, which allows up to 5 percent of government park land to be used or alienated for public projects, for reconsideration. Surya also urged the Governor to return the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (Amendment) Act, 2026. Both cited the risks the Bills pose to Bengaluru’s green spaces, including Lalbagh and Cubbon Park, and alleged that they undermine safeguards intended to protect parks and ensure oversight of major projects.
Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya and environmentalist AN Yellappa Reddy have separately urged Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to return the Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) (Amendment) Bill, 2026, to the State Legislature for reconsideration. Surya also urged the Governor to return the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (Amendment) Act, 2026.
The two amendments, recently passed by the State Legislature on Monday, 24 August, effectively clear legal hurdles for Chief Minister DK Shivakumar’s pet project, the contentious Bengaluru tunnel road project.
The amendment to the Parks Act would permit the State government to alienate or allow the use of up to 5 percent of the total area of a government park or garden for public infrastructure and utility projects.
The provision permits alienation through sale, lease, gift, exchange, mortgage or otherwise in favour of government departments, statutory authorities, government companies and local authorities. Land already alienated would be counted within the 5 percent ceiling.
The amendment to the BMLTA Act inserts a new sub-section under Section 19 and incorporates a savings clause covering projects initiated between the commencement of the BMLTA Act, 2022, and the notification of the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority Rules, 2026.
The provision deems all decisions taken, plans prepared, operations undertaken and proceedings pending during that period to have been taken or instituted under the Act.
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Tejasvi Surya said the Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) (Amendment) Bill, 2026, could place Bengaluru’s already limited green spaces at risk of exploitation.
He cited Bengaluru’s approximately 1,353 parks, spread across about 1,308 acres, and said the 5 percent provision could expose around 65.4 acres to diversion through a State government notification.
Lalbagh, spread across around 240 acres, and Cubbon Park, covering about 197 acres, together account for 437 acres. At 5 percent, Surya said, the provision could potentially place 12 acres of Lalbagh and 9.85 acres of Cubbon Park at risk of diversion.
He noted that the proposed tunnel road project would pass through Lalbagh and require around 1.92 hectares, or nearly five acres, for the tunnel and shafts.
The BJP leader said the amendment was retrogressive and that the government had neither defined “public utility” nor ensured that the provision could not be used to facilitate large-scale real estate or commercial projects.
“Any diversion of park land must be subject to strict safeguards, environmental assessment, transparency and meaningful public consultation,” he wrote.
In a separate representation, Surya alleged that the amendment to the BMLTA Act retrospectively validates projects that were required to undergo scrutiny.
Section 19 requires the Authority to approve major urban transport projects and bars State authorities and agencies from initiating such projects without its prior approval.
He said the savings clause could retrospectively legitimise megaprojects valued at nearly ₹1 lakh crore, including the proposed tunnel road project, estimated to cost over ₹40,000 crore, without the institutional scrutiny and due process envisaged under the Act.
Surya also noted that Rule 24 of the BMLTA Rules, 2026, which contains a corresponding savings clause, has been challenged before the Karnataka High Court. While the matter is pending before the Bench of the Chief Justice of Karnataka, he said, the State government has proceeded to incorporate the provision into the Act itself.
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Yellappa Reddy said the proposed Section 5(2) in the amendment represents a fundamental departure from the purpose of the Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) Act, 1975.
“The central issue is simple: Should a statute enacted for the preservation of Government parks itself become the statutory source of power for their alienation?” he wrote.
“Lalbagh Botanical Garden cannot rationally be treated merely as a specified number of acres of Government property.”
He said a uniform 5 percent ceiling could permit the progressive fragmentation of parks through multiple interventions. The law, he said, should ensure that all previous alienations and uses are cumulatively counted, and that successive projects cannot separately invoke the ceiling.
Reddy also pointed to Karnataka’s earlier experience with the proposal to locate Veera Soudha within Lalbagh. An exception was introduced into the statutory framework but was subsequently removed following public representations and reconsideration, with the project instead proposed elsewhere.
Reddy also distinguished between the temporary use of a limited area for an unavoidable public utility and permanent alienation through sale, gift, exchange or mortgage. He asked the Governor to seek reconsideration of whether such transactions could be permitted under a law enacted to preserve government parks.
“A percentage is an administrative measurement. It is not, by itself, an ecological standard. Nature does not function according to administrative percentages,” he said.
He said “public infrastructure” and “public utility” could not become open-ended exceptions, and argued that any authority seeking park land must establish genuine necessity, the absence of a reasonably feasible alternative, minimum ecological interference, overriding public necessity, and proportionality between the asserted benefit and ecological loss.
“Protected park land must be the last alternative considered, never the first convenient Government land available,” he wrote.
