IT’s happening: Road work in progress

IT’s happening: Road work in progress
The Times of India

Bangalore: Log in to some good news. Work on the famed IT-BT corridors has not only begun but has actually stuck to deadlines.

Airport Road, which had never boasted of a pavement, now has a spanking new compaction and pressure capacitated pavements certified by experts. Hosur Road, one of the worst affected in September-October’s deluge, has a drain, including shoulder drains to prevent water-logging. And as a pre-emptive measure, drains and pavement openings have been provided with ducts to avoid road cuttings by private players in future.

The Karnataka Land Army Corporation (KLAC), which has the task of upgrading 11 select roads, has thought up a fresh design for the roads with specifications better than those laid down by the Indian Road Congress. Plus they maintain that the roads will have a time-span of three to five years during which time the stretches would not need repairs at all.

However, of the 11 roads, 8 need asphalting and this will apparently be delayed because the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) still needs to complete the exercise of road-widening.

Explains A S Srikanth, managing director of KLAC: “After January 15, we will start asphalting work in full swing. Some roads do not need asphalting, just some maintenance will do, whereas some other roads have a deadline of February 15. And the privatepublic-partnership model has worked wonderfully.’’

Moreover many of the roads — 80 ft Road connecting Old Madras Road to Airport Road, 100 ft Road to Sai Baba Temple Road, 100 ft Road to Suranjandas Road — are to act as alternatives to the heavily congested Airport Road and ease traffic to a large extent. A triumphant R K Misra, vice-president of Flextronics and member of the empowered committee on infrastructure, declares that the progress so far has been very satisfactory. “Hitherto there was no accountability, deadlines meant nothing to civic bodies. Now they are sticking to deadlines, almost, and this kind of co-operation between public and private players has to continue without acrimony.’’ A few IT companies have come forward in funding the lighting of Hosur Road beyond BMP limits. Moreover, signal synchronisation and intelligent traffic management by the traffic police is already in place.

SCOPE OF WORKS

• Removal of disturbed and damaged interlocking blocks
• Fixing pre-cast drain covers
•Bus bays
• Laying PVC pipeline in pavements