Sir,

This refers to the news item titled “KSRTC Bannimantap bus stand work gains pace” in yesterday’s Star of Mysore.

Constructing a Rs.129 crore major KSRTC bus terminus on a 24-acre land at Bannimantap is monumentally bad planning. 

It has been cogently argued against and objected to, in the past few months, by various eminent members of Mysuru’s public, but it appears that government is blind to reality and deaf to reason.

During the period of our iconic Dasara festival, when Mysuru gets packed with lakhs of visitors and vehicles, and many thousands arrive in and depart from Mysuru on a daily basis by buses, traffic jams and utter confusion will be inevitable. Worse, it will have no remedy, because this bus terminus is precisely on the Jumboo Savari route.

It is not clear whether the government consulted the KSRTC and the Traffic Police before finalising the plans                  for construction.

Is it located according to the Comprehensive Development Plans (CDP) or Master Plan for Mysuru?

Shockingly, it appears that all this planning and progress of the project to the tender stage, has been done without a traffic  survey!

The government officials, who have moved this project to this stage, need to be called to public accountability, before any contract is concluded.

— Maj. Gen. S.G. Vombatkere, Mysuru, 3.3.2025

NOTE: When some Senators went to US President Ronald Reagan with a problem seeking his intervention, he told them, “The government is the problem.” Same can be said of our problems with the Bannimantap bus stand.

Assuming that the government has indeed consulted the KSRTC  and the Traffic Police, the opinion of these two bodies must have been Yes.

“Yes Master,” is the habitual response of our bureaucracy as during Mughal days of “Ji Huzoor.” No officer wants to invite trouble by displeasing the political masters.

There cannot be any public accountability on the part of government officials; accountability lies with the Ministers, Cabinet, the Executive, not the Bureaucracy in such decision making. — Ed

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