Heavy rains, flooding, crawling traffic and callous authorities

Road to chaos
Heavy rains, flooding, crawling traffic and callous authorities — Bangaloreans try to cope on their own
Times News Network

IT was a harrowing Monday morning for most Bangaloreans. The rains that lashed the city over the weekend took its toll — the already crumbling infrastructure taking a severe beating.

With overflowing drains and waterlogged roads, there was little that anybody could do. Children reached school late; many offices announced they would go easy on employees who were stuck in traffic; and the feeling that overtook commuters was one of frustration. Bangalore’s traffic police sent out SMSes advising people to avoid Hosur Road, one of the badly affected arterial roads.

But Bangaloreans, who are already quite used to the everyday ordeal of getting to work and back, have found their own solutions to many of these perennial problems.

Shreekanth Shenoy, who works for an IT major in Electronic City, says: “I usually board our office bus at 6.45 am from Vijaynagar and reach office by 8.15 am. Monday morning, the bus reached the JayadevaHospital flyover on Bannerghatta Road at 7.30 am and till 9.15 am we had hardly made any progress. We decided to work from our Bannerghatta Road branch instead. The conference room was converted into a workspace for us.”

Said a resident of Indiranagar, “We kept waiting for the corporation to get the drains in our area cleared but that didn’t happen. During heavy rains on September 4, the basements in our area got flooded; I had four-feet-deep water inside my house. Soon after that, we decided to take matters into our hands. We got the hump at the beginning of our lane raised by a foot and this time we didn’t have a problem.”

Adith Bhandari, who lives on Ali Askar Road, says: “I always look for an alternative route, trying to avoid the main, congested roads. But it doesn’t always work. Because of several one-ways in our area there is no alternative route to take. Three days ago it took me 20 minutes to come out of our gate because of a stream of vehicles coming from Cunningham Road. But if I have to go to Airport Road or Koramangala, I try to take smaller lanes. But I’m not the only one trying out these routes; so sometimes these roads get jammed. And there are no personnel to direct traffic either.”