7 foot overbridges planned

7 foot-over bridges to combat city traffic
The Asian Age

The subject meeting convened by the Bangalore City Corporation on Wednesday, unanimously cleared a proposal to construct foot over bridges in the city to tackle the increasing pressure from city traffic. Chairing the subject meeting, mayor P.R. Ramesh said that the Wantage Advertising Agency Private Company has come forward to construct seven foot-over bridges on BOT basis (build-operate-transfer) at critical traffic junctions in the city.

But, Opposition leader B.R. Nanjundappa asserted that there was no need for more foot-over bridges in the city as the one on KG Road has failed to attract pedestrians in the last 32 years. He demanded that the project be shelved.
Mr Ramesh replied that the BCC would not be investing in the construction of these over bridges as the proposal had come from an advertising company interested in constructing the bridges on a pilot basis. Later, Janata Dal(Secular) members held a protest demanding the immediate withdrawal of the plan to privatise the maintenance of 2,000 km of roads.

BCC engineer-in-chief Rame Gowda said that the BCC has called for tenders with norms similar to those of the National Highway Authority and the state public works department. The BCC would benefit from this scheme as it would save considerable money spent on road maintenance besides giving more time to BCC staff to supervise the maintenance work, he added.

Meanwhile, the BJP members objected to the works allotted by the BCC to blacklisted contractors. Mr Ramesh immediately directed the BCC officials to cancel all tender works allotted to blacklisted contractors.
When the BJP members persisted with their protest, the mayor said he had already issued directions to the officials concerned to cancel works allotted to these contractors. He sought the co-operation of the Oppositionbut they staged a walk out.