EIA study also recommended to establish an Environmental Cell within BMRTL in order to supervise and coordinate studies, environmental monitoring, and implementation of environmental mitigating measures.
EIA report lastly estimated the cost for environmental measures which include compensatory afforestation, revegetation of soil disposal area, establishment of environmental cell, compensation of loss of forests, and soil disposal and treatment.
8.4 Comments
"Report on Environmental Baseline / Benchmark Studies for the Elevated Light Rail Transit System for Bangalore" made clear the past, current and future situations of various environmental problems of Bangalore City, and "Environmental Impact Assessment for Elevated Light Rail Transit System" presented extensive EIA for the project. These studies will be very useful for implementing the project successfully.
Based on Japanese experiences in the field of environmental preservation in urban transport area, the following several comments will be presented which would be hopefully made use of by UBSTL in implementing the project further successfully.
(1) The above Baseline Study and EIA Study presented the past, current and future situations of environmental negative aspects of road transport such as road accidental rate, air pollution, etc. quantitatively and also mentioned the positive impact of ELRT Project such as decrease of air pollution, decrease of road accident, increase of energy efficiency qualitatively. If the quantitative comparison between railway system and road transport system in the aspects of these environmental issues are presented, it will be useful for the government and Bangalore citizen to understand how ELRT Project can improve the environmental conditions of Bangalore City. Attached Figures 8.4-l, 8.4-2, 8.4-3, 8.4-4 are some examples for such quantitative comparison. Namely Fig. 8.4-1 shows how much railway system is safer than road transport, Fig. 8.4-2 shows how much more railway system is energy efficient compared with road transport, Fig. 8.4-3 shows how less railway system pollutes air compared with road transport, and Fig. 8.4-4 shows how much more railway system can use land efficiently than road transport. If these data can be combined with traffic demand forecast data, with-project case can be quantitatively assessed against without-project case in the environmental and socio-economic aspects.
