Some hope for Bannerghatta Road

A DEADLINE WILL BE MISSED
Some hope at last for ‘hell of a road’
Deccan Herald

The Public Works Department (PWD) on Tuesday kick-started a ten-month-old project to convert the existing Bannerghatta road into a four-lane route between J P Nagar outer ring road and Meenakshi Temple, DHNS reports from Bangalore.

Estimated to cost around Rs 9 crore, the PWD has taken up the project in partnership with Mantri Associates. The four-lane road is aimed at smoothening the traffic flow on this stretch, and it is expected to be completed in four months.

Though the PWD launched the project in January, it could not take up the work, owing to “non-co-operation” from utility providers like BWSSB, Bescom, BSNL and others in shifting their service lines that were coming in the way of the project, sources in the PWD alleged.

Recently, residents of HSR Layout, J P Nagar and other surrounding areas, along with hundreds of Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore) students protested against the delay in implementing the project.

Even after re-commencing the work at full-swing, the PWD is not sure of meeting Chief Minister N Dharam Singh’s deadline of January 15, 2005 to complete the project.

According to PWD officials, all the stake holders — BWSSB, Bescom, BSNL and BMP — have almost shifted their service lines to pave the way for implementing the project.

The PWD plans to implement the project in four phases, one km in each phase. “As and when they completely shift their service lines, work will be started in those stretches,” officials said.

Highway standards
In view of heavy traffic flow — around 84,000 passenger car per unit — the PWD has decided to implement the project on National Highway standards. In other words, the proposed road will be of much superior quality, as per the guidelines of Indian Road Congress. Besides, the PWD has decided to lay new roads, replacing the existing two-lane route. “Mere widening of the existing road would not serve any purpose as the traffic flow is very heavy. So, we decided to lay new roads,” PWD Chief Engineer Muninarasimaihswamy told Deccan Herald.