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Friday, March 29 2024
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Actor Prakash Belawadi joins Lisaa & Creo students demanding local trains in Bengaluru

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Bengaluru: The #steel flyover beda and #chukubuku railu beku campaign got big thumbs from the students of Lisaa School of Design and Creo Valley School of Film and Television. Thousands of students from these schools created awareness on what actually Bengaluru needs. During their open day programme on Saturday, the students came up with inspirational designs and demonstrated that the future of Bengaluru was in promoting mass transport like sub-urban trains, Metro and buses and not to go for expensive projects like steel flyover which will result in massacre of 812 trees.

The special open day programme was kick-started by noted actor, director, theatre artist and activist Prakash Belawadi. Thanking the Lisaa and Creo schools’ students for taking up this initiative, Belawadi said the need of hour was to publicise the campaign #ChukuBukuBeku to demand local train service, also referred to as the commuter train, suburban rail and namma railu-the project that has been pending for more than 30 years.

“Demotorising Bengaluru is the only option forward. Local train service will make a significant impact by taking lakhs of private vehicles off the streets. The best example was Mumbai where there were 50 per cent of lesser vehicles than Bengaluru due to the efficient local train service. The people of Bengaluru are ready for commuter rail and the government must prioritise this and show results within the next few months”, opined Belawadi.

Lisaa School of Design Founder-Director Avi Keswani said, “I have seen most of the western countries where the mass transportation has been popularised. It is not only helpful in saving the environment but also keeps a check on individual vehicles. Recently, there was an article in BBC which talks about Bengaluru traffic going from bad to worse. This is just an indicator that Bengaluru’s traffic woes have now become notorious even in foreign countries. So, we have joined the campaign to promote mass transportation.”

Citizens for Bengaluru activist Srinivas Alavilli said it was a shame that so many successive governments in the State and Centre have squandered an opportunity that is low cost and readily available due to existing infrastructure of 180+ kms of railway lines and nearly 20 stations in and around Bengaluru.  “More than 25 lakh people can benefit from a full-fledged commuter rail service, drastically reducing the traffic congestion and improving air quality.  It is not acceptable that our government proposes to spend Rs 2000 Crore on a single flyover of 6.7kms when they have done nothing in so many years to bring local train service into operation”, he added.

Lisaa and Creo Valley Schools’ Founder-Director Girish Keswani said travelling in train was very beneficial. “If you travel in a Volvo bus, it costs more than Rs 100 but if you travel in a local train from Krantiveera Sangolli Rayana Bengaluru City Railway station to Hoodi station, it would cost just Rs 10 and we can reach quickly. Now, even IT companies are arranging for shuttle service between Hoodi station and Whitefield. This can be termed as the first success for Bengalureans in demanding a local train service. However, this is only the beginning as we need a full-fledged sub-urban system and this is one of the major solutions to Bengaluru’s traffic woes.”

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