Why don’t you be in my shoes?

Why don’t you be in my shoes?’
Bangalore:

“By 5 pm today, I will hand over the cheque of BCC’s 50 per cent contribution. You raise your portion of the money and start the road works.’’
BCC commissioner K Jothiramalingam reportedly threw a friendly challenge to the IT bigwigs to handle the responsibility, at the closed-door empowered committee meeting on Thursday,.

Jothiramalingam is believed to have suggested that road upgradation work should be taken up on public-private partnership to ensure the deadline is met, besides stating that the project cost be shared by BCC and industry.

“I will give my cheque to you by evening (Thursday) and you can begin the work,’’ Jothiramalingam reportedly said.

The industry honchos who refused the 50:50 sharing, believed to have offered to chip in with only 10 per cent. But it was not acceptable to Jothiramalingam who insisted they at least contribute 25 per cent.

The commissioner was driving home his point that carrying out road works was a task indeed. But one of the IT captains cleverly brought the debate to a close by saying: “The actual preamble of this meeting was not to discuss about the funding aspect.’’

Toll roads? Well...

Why not have toll roads? IT companies have suggested to the government to build roads to connect Bannerghatta Road-Electronic City and Sarjapur Road-Electronic city with onethird contribution from the companies themselves. Further, the government can levy a toll on these stretches only for cars and trucks; two-wheelers can be spared.

According to the suggestion, the cost of constructing a 26-km road will be Rs 30 crore, including a flyover at Electronic City which will ensure that vehicles coming from these roads won’t disturb ongoing traffic on Hosur Road.
The suggestion, made a few months ago, was not received well by bureaucrats. Will they act on it now, one has to wait and see.