City-Mysore road misses deadline

City-Mysore road misses deadline
Deccan Herald

The movement of traffic will increase on the Bangalore -Mysore road during the festive season as lakhs of people are expected to visit Mysore.

It’s going to be destination Mysore from Tuesday as the Dasara-related festivities and cultural programmes are commencing in this heritage city.

But the work on the four-laning of Bangalore-Mysore State highway is yet to be completed though the public works minister had declared the work would be completed before Dasara.

In fact, PWD Minister H D Revanna had set a September 30 deadline for the completion of the work in a bid to ensure a smooth trip to those visiting Mysore to participate in Dasara festivities.

But, the work is yet to be completed despite adopting day-and-night work schedule at several stretches.

Work delay

The field staff indicated to Deccan Herald that it might not be possible to complete the entire work even by the final day of Dasara – Vijayadashami – when the jamboo savaari would be taken out and lakhs of people are expected to visit Mysore from Bangalore to witness this grand procession. They also say the work could get further delayed if there are rains.

Interestingly, a majority of the bottlenecks and incomplete stretches are located mostly at both the ends of the highway – near Bangalore and Mysore.

On the other hand, a portion of the four-laning work has been completed in the middle-stretch barring some critical locations.

Bridge works

The four-laning work is yet to be completed for nearly 15 kms from the Mysore-end, while the work at Kengeri near Bangalore-end is far from over. Of course, there are some bottlenecks in between also.

The four-laning is not yet completed for small stretches near Kumbalgodu, (near Bidadi), Doddamallur, Kengal (near Channapatna), K Shettihalli, Baburayanakoppalu (Srirangapatna), Tubinakere, Halebudanur, Induval (Mandya) and Shivapura (Maddur).

Even construction of seven major bridges is yet to be completed.

But, the minister himself had excluded these bridge works from the deadline.

However, there’s no doubt the situation is much better than last year when the road work had not progressed at all, say commuters.

But they also feel the present road condition could be dangerous at times.

“The completed stretches are good and naturally one loves to speed on them. But, while speeding on those stretches, suddenly you hit bad patches or you are forced to take a diversion to a parallel stretch as the four-laning work is still going on.

“This results in accidents,” observes Mr Mohan who drives frequently on these stretches.

Accident spots

Monday itself saw two accidents in which four persons were injured on the 20-km stretch between Kumbalgod to Jnanabharathi campus.

Both accidents occurred at the spots meant for diversion.

The vehicular movement is all set to increase on these stretches in the next nine days. According to Mysore Deputy Commissioner Selvakumar, nearly 35 to 40 lakh people are expected to visit Mysore in the next nine days.

Of this, about 50 per cent are expected to use the Bangalore-Mysore Road and the Bangalore-Mysore train.

Hence, at least 10 lakh people will be travelling on these roads over the next nine odddays.