Concerning civic and environmental problems
MGP wants government and quasi government bodies to adhere to the law and if persuasion does not work, it will go to the courts to enforce the law. Even here, it normally fights only test cases in which a large number of citizens will be benefited and cases in which it impleads itself (at no financial cost) to give moral support to a genuine public cost. When people bring cases of encroachment, building bye law violations, etc. in which only a limited number of people are affected MGP encouraged the affected parties to file cases themselves. When people (especially MGP members) file such cases with MGP's guidance, an impression is often created that MGP itself has filed the cases, but it is the wrong impression.
MGP feels that to make a real difference, a large number of individuals and organisations have to take up the fight. There are some such individuals and organisations in Mysore now, but their numbers and strength are not increasing fast enough. Without an overwhelming public pressure, even judicial victories are meaningless because the people who violate the law also disobey court orders. For example, there have been court decisions declaring that a bank has violated zonal regulations( which means that bank building has to be demolished), staying the construction of a petrol bunk, ordering the demolition of a building in a park,etc., but in each of these cases, the court orders have been wilfully disobeyed and one has to again approach the courts to enforce these orders. This is what happens when authorities are derelict in their duties and public pressure is not strong enough. So MGP is concentrating now on explaining various aspects of law and important court decisions to the public and encouraging more and more people to make use of them to fight law violators and erring officials. It hopes that when sufficient number of people are aware of their legal rights and how to fight for them, sufficient pressure can be applied on the erring officials. The courts are now ruling that officials who misuse their powers are personally liable for damages and MGP is encouraging the public to press this issue in their fight.
In MGP's view, even when a “development” does not violate the law, it should not be prudent, beneficial to the public in the long run and sustainable. It is opposed to projects in which limited natural resources such as water or limited financial resources are spent extravagantly for the benefit of a few or for general public purposes in which the benefit is not in commensurate with the cost. Such projects are usually initiated by the government in secrecy with little public debate. The recent ADB project to improve the infrastructure of Mysore was one such decision. This was a clandestine affair from the beginning and for all its efforts, MGP was not able to get the crucial details concerning the project. Even now we do not know what financial implications to the citizens of Mysore are. All we know is that the planning was terrible, the improvements in the roads is minimal, the footpaths of the city have been all but destroyed, the improvement in the water supply does not match what was promised (while the project was supposed to solve Mysore's water problems for the next twenty years, we are talking of bringing Kabini water to Mysore before even beginning to pay back the loan!), hundreds of garbage bins constructed all over the city are totally non-functional, the storm water drains are inadequate as exemplified by the massive flooding near the Ballal Circle every time it rains and a significant portion of the sewage still runs through the storm water drains.
The Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor was another example. The cloak of secrecy that hung over this project was even thicker. When bits and pieces of the project became public knowledge, it was obvious that the highway was just a red herring, the real issue was the obscene profits to be made in selling the real estate in the proposed townships.
MGP also believes that projects that destroy the ambience of the city is not beneficial to the public in the long run. So it opposed to the construction of commercial complexes, hospitals, petrol bunks etc. in residential areas and to the gaudy advertisements which have been permitted on two major roads in Mysore. The income from these ventures is not quite commensurate with the damage to the ambience of the roads. Once the ambience is destroyed, it cannot be brought back, it is lost forever.