Following the death of 11 persons in a stampede outside the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, located in the heart of Bengaluru, on June 4, a long-standing proposal to shift the cricket stadium to the city’s outskirts has again gained currency. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, responding to a media query, has said the government will consider the proposal. This has also brought to the fore similar proposals to shift other entities like the Bangalore Turf Club (BTC), the Bangalore Golf Club (BGC), and the agricultural produce marketing committee (APMC) yard at Yeshwantpur out of the core city areas.
There have been two instances in Bengaluru when the government has shifted such establishments out of the core city areas. The APMC yard, which was operating out of N.T. Pet in the congested Pete area of the core city, was shifted to Yeshwantpur in the northwestern part in the late 1980s, and the HAL airport was shut down for commercial passenger traffic in 2008 after a new airport was built about 40 km away near Devanahalli.
Inadequate seating
In the aftermath of the stampede, the city police are also keen on getting the stadium out of the central business district (CBD). “The seating capacity of the stadium — 32,000 — has proven to be inadequate, given the demand for tickets during almost every match. There are thousands of gatecrashers during every match. Our recent experience suggests that if there is a tragedy inside the stadium, evacuation will be a Herculean task. It is better if the stadium is shifted to the city’s outskirts, where a larger facility can be built with adequate parking space,” says a senior police officer.
The city police will likely recommend the same to the State government and the John Michael D’Cunha commission, which is tasked with recommending measures to ensure such incidents do not recur.
Sources in the government say that land has been earmarked for a sports stadium in the Dr. Shivaram Karanth Layout, being developed by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) in the northern part of the city. Plans are also on to build a similar stadium at the now-proposed Bidadi Integrated Township project in the southwestern part of the city as well.
Many efforts to shift
Meanwhile, around 300 shops selling perishable items such as onions, potatoes, garlic, and ginger at the Yeshwantpur APMC yard, spread over 85 acres, were recently given a June 1 deadline to shift to the Dasanapura yard near Nelamangala, northwest of Bengaluru. For over a decade now, the Karnataka government has been trying to shift the yard to Dasanapura to avoid lorry traffic in the city, but has repeatedly failed. This time, too, efforts have met with legal challenges, forcing the government to seemingly back off.
A file photo of the agricultural produce marketing committee yard at Yeshwantpur, which is spread over 85 acres. The State government’s efforts to shift it to Dasanapura yard near Nelamangala have met with legal challenges.
| Photo Credit:
K. MURALI KUMAR
In the last week of May, the police gave a report to the government recommending the shifting of shops selling perishables at the Yeshwantpur yard to Dasanapura, citing parking issues for lorries leading to traffic chaos in the area.
Meanwhile, proposals to shift the turf club and the golf club to the city’s outskirts are decades old. However, the police make a distinction between the case of the APMC yard and Chinnaswamy Stadium and that of the BTC and BGC: while the former two lead to traffic congestion and crowding, the latter do not.
Sources in one of the clubs say that successive governments have been eyeing the BTC and BGC land as they are unable to find large tracts of land in the CBD.
Relocating not the only solution
However, many, including urban planners, argue that relocating these establishments is not the only solution.
As a global city, Bengaluru needs to have stadiums, museums, and other such heritage, sports, and entertainment facilities, apart from open spaces, in the city as well, urban planners argue. Most other cities also have stadiums in the core area, urban planners point out.
It has to be noted that even iconic cricket stadiums in other cities of the country like the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai (seating capacity 33,100 and spread over 13 acres), the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai (seating capacity 38,200 and spread over 41.9 acres), and Eden Gardens (seating capacity 68,000 and spread over 50 acres) are situated in the core areas. Except Eden Gardens, the seating capacities of other stadiums are comparable with that of the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
An urban planner says, “Relocating stadiums, clubs, and all big venues to the peri-urban areas around the city is not going to solve everything. These areas are poorly connected by road and public transport networks. The need of the hour is for urban management to anticipate multiple crises.”
Former Director-General and Inspector-General of Police of Karnataka S.T. Ramesh says that while shifting the stadium can be done, it will not solve the core issue. “However big a stadium we build, it will not be enough, seeing the crowds that gathered on June 4. What we need are new crowd management techniques,” he argues.
Another urban planner argues that the APMC yard is a nerve centre serving all retail shops in Bengaluru, and pushing it out of the city, to an area not served well by public transport, will lead to disruption. “There are too many back-and-forth linkages between various areas of the city and the yard,” he says.
Ravi Kumar of the Bangalore Potato and Onion Traders’ Association says that it is not feasible for traders selling perishable goods to shift to Dasanapura. “There are no basic amenities there and no public transport facilities. Who will come there?” he asks. “Instead of shifting one group of traders to Dasanapura and retaining another at Yeshwantpur, let both yards function fully, trading all the 92 notified items. Customers will choose between the two yards according to their convenience,” he says.
Shifting BTC and BGC
Urban planners also make a distinction between the stadium and APMC yard issue on one side, and the BTC and BGC issue on the other. The issue at the heart of relocating BTC and BGC is the need for land for public utilities in the core city, and not overcrowding. Since these large tracts of land only serve a small group of elites, the proposal to reclaim this land for larger public use by relocating these clubs is justified, many argue.
Both BGC and BTC are colonial institutions started in 1876 and 1920, respectively. While the BGC is spread over 60 acres and is estimated to have over 4,500 members, the BTC today occupies around 69 acres of land after losing a few acres to road widening and has 350 members. Both clubs hold significant land holdings in the core city, a stone’s throw away from the Vidhana Soudha, but serve an exclusive set of members.
“We haven’t been able to build a single new government office or create any public space for tourism in the core city. The main problem is land crunch. The BTC and BGC are on prime real estate that can be put to good public use if they are relocated,” says a senior urban planner who has worked on multiple master plans for the Bengaluru region.
Efforts by successive governments to relocate the BTC and BGC have hit a wall. In 2010, when the government tried to reclaim the BTC land, allotted to the club by the erstwhile Princely State of Mysore in 2010, for a theme park, the matter went to the High Court of Karnataka, which ordered the shifting of the club to the city’s outskirts in six months. The BTC challenged this in the Supreme Court and the case has been pending there for the past 15 years.
A file photo of the Bangalore Golf Club, located in the city centre, is spread over 60 acres.
| Photo Credit:
K. MURALI KUMAR
In January 2024, Siddaramaiah said he had suggested that the BTC shift to the Kunigal Stud Farm, the oldest stud farm in the country that can be traced back to the times of Tipu Sultan, 70 km away in the Tumakuru district. However, there has been resistance to this idea, both from the turf club and within the government itself. While there is a proposal to convert the stud farm into an integrated township championed by one section of the State government, sources say the BTC authorities argue that Kunigal is too far.
A Karnataka Legislative Council’s Special House Committee, led by BJP member N. Ravi Kumar, had in 2024 suggested that the State government take over the land of both BTC and BGC and shift these clubs to Kunigal Stud Farm and Jakkur Aerodrome land, respectively. The State government had made a move to take over the BGC land in 2018 as well. The then Public Works Minister H.D. Revanna had threatened to take over the golf course land in view of many violations. It was suggested that the land be converted into a legislator’s club. Earlier in the same year, Home Minister G. Parameshwara, who was holding the same charge then, had said the government would explore relocating the golf course after a ball landed at the Chief Minister’s home office Krishna.
Cost and other factors
Sources say that the general body of the BTC has authorised the management committee to negotiate relocation with the State government and get back to it. The BTC has been, in principle, ready to relocate, but with riders, sources say. “To build a state-of-the-art turf club, we need anywhere between 100 and 150 acres of table-top flat land, which the government should allot us in a convenient place, and it requires nearly ₹250 crore, which the club doesn’t have. With no assets and a hand-to-mouth existence at the club, raising a loan is also tough. We do not know how to foot the bill for relocation,” a source in the BTC says.
Further, the BTC also wants to retain around 5.5 acres of land in the present location as an off-site betting premises where punters can place bets and see races on big screens. Without this facility in the core city, the club will lose revenue and become dysfunctional, as large crowds are unlikely to turn up at Kunigal or any other location outside the city, sources say.
Some members of the three sports clubs in the core city are learnt to have suggested that the government come up with an integrated sports city near the Kempegowda International Airport, where they can shift not only the BTC and the BGC but also the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
“Cricket, golf, and horse racing are all internationally recognised sports. There is ample land available near the airport and a sports city, integrating not only these three sporting facilities but also other sports, near the airport in Bengaluru will be a great addition to the city,” one of the members of these sporting clubs argues.
How reclaimed land is used
A senior urban planner, who did not wish to be named, says that if any of these four installations are moved out of the core city, how the reclaimed land is put to use is key and public interest needs to be at the centre of it.
“When a similar situation arose in Mumbai with the mill land, architect Charles Correa suggested a one-third rule. One-third of the land could be commercially exploited by the mill owners, one-third reserved for public housing, and the rest for public open spaces. But this was not followed. Here, the land is not privately held, but by the government. We need to evolve a similar formula and ensure that all the land is not commercially exploited. At least parts of these lands, if reclaimed, need to be reserved for imaginative open public spaces and the rest can be used for public utilities,” the urban planner says.
(Edited by Giridhar Narayan)
Published – June 20, 2025 07:26 am IST