Bangalore, October 27: Road users here are at their wit’s end. For the past four years, Varthur–Vibgyor Road, near Kundalahalli Gate, that leads to their apartments is in a deplorable state, causing untold misery to hundreds of residents and commuters.
Now the road has galvanised them into fighting for good civic infrastructure. Residents have formed the Federation of Thubarahalli Apartment Owners’ Association and are staging a protest on Saturday, demanding the road be laid immediately.
Vignesh Mudaliar from the association said the protest would be a peaceful one. He said that other than the poor condition of the road, residents have also had to put up with indiscriminate dumping of garbage in the locality, no streetlights or drainage facilities.
Another resident Ramesh Varna told The Hindu that they (the association) had approached the local councillor Sridhar Reddy, local MLA Arvind Limbavali, city Mayors and even Chief Ministers seeking some relief, to no avail. “Several memorandums were also submitted. Only empty assurances were made,” he said.
Residents said the road is worse than a kacha road. After rains, the muddy road can hardly be used, as it becomes slippery. During the summer, the area is enveloped in dust.
The dumping of garbage had become a breeding ground for vermin, pigs and dogs. The number of vector-borne infections was on the rise in the area, residents claimed.
Several attempts to reach Mr. Reddy failed. The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) jurisdictional chief engineer conceded that there were several complaints about the poor civic infrastructure in the area. “However, the work was frozen and we could not take it up. We have now submitted a proposal to lay the road at an estimated cost of Rs. 1.5 crore to the BBMP Commissioner’s office, seeking approval,” he said.
Given the dire need for the road in the area, he said the BBMP would execute the work through the Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Ltd. “The existing road is narrow. We will first develop the existing road and at a later date, acquire land on either side to provide roadside drains,” he added.
