Residents target delay in flyover

Residents target delay in flyover
The Times of India

Bangalore: Bangaloreans are fed up with the city’s pathetic infrastructure and have made no bones about expressing the same. If residents of Bannerghatta Road set the trend last year by going public with their woes, others followed suit to expose lack of amenities in their area.

This time, all eyes are on Airport Road as citizens plan to gather there on Tuesday in protest against the sorry state of the Airport Road-Inner Ring Road flyover.

Work on the project, the brainchild of BDA, should have been over by April 2004, but has been extended twice: first to June 2005 and then to end of 2005 and beginning of 2006.

Things are currently in limbo, however, because the original contractor has gone to court to protest its removal from the project.

Result: Airport Road, already choked with traffic on normal days, has become a nightmare now. Air passengers have been missing flights because of traffic jams there; residents complain that smog and pollution have permanently descended on the area; the ordinary pedestrian finds crossing the road a most harrowing experience.

Now, residents have decided enough is enough. “This is not a protest just for the flyover, this is an indictment of the state of infrastructure in the city,’’ explained Sheila Premkumar from Public Affairs Centre (PAC), the organisation spearheading the protest.

She said citizens do not want to blame the authorities for everything, and said this is also meant to be a wake-up call for the judiciary, urging it to process cases faster, especially those dealing with public projects.

Premkumar said celebrities like cricketers Anil Kumble and Venkatesh Prasad are expected to turn up for the protest, to be held between 9 am and 10 am.

Those assembled will also sign on a petition, that is to be taken to CM Dharam Singh. “We want the government to tell us in three days (from Tuesday) when the flyover will be ready,’’ she added.

BDA officials are upset. They point out that there are other pending projects —Rajajinagar underpass and the National College flyover. “Why have they chosen the flyover for the protest,’’ they ask.
For details, call 25537260/25520246 or visit: www.pacindia.org.