Officials sleep over resident woes

Officials sleep over resident woes
Deccan Herald

The residents of Indiranagar 100 Feet Road, whose vehicles are stuck in their garages, thanks to the construction of the one-feet high box drains outside their gates, will have to wait awhile before help arrives.

A day after Deccan Herald highlighted the plight of residents on July 3, no corrective action plan was worked out by the authorities. According to Sohail, manager of a commercial store on the affected 200-metre stretch, a few engineers came for an inspection on Monday morning, but offered no assurances. “As there are no ramps to bring in or take out vehicles, employees working in our premises were forced to park on a bylane behind the building,” Mr Sohail said.

However, according to Stup Consultants, the chief consultant for BDA’s Airport Road Flyover project, the level of the road will be raised to match the height of the box drains. A T Samuel, head of Stup Consultants, said the road level of the Domlur-Indiranagar loop would be raised by one feet, to make it at level with the road height of the new flyover that will connect Koramangala to Indiranagar. However, it will take a few weeks for this work to commence. “We will wait for the flyover to be inaugurated on July 15 so that the pressure on the loop is reduced. Only then will we commence work,” Mr Samuel said.

Loops not ready yet

The infrastructure eyesore on Airport Road will not end on July 15, when the Koramangala-Indiranagar link gets inaugurated. Four out of six loops planned as connection to the flyover are still awaiting completion. If work progresses as per plan, one loop will be opened every month, stretching the final completion deadline to September-October.

There will be traffic diversions on Airport Road between 11 pm and 4 am to allow for construction work.

For those who are seeking an explanation for this seemingly ‘unending’ project, the reason given by Mr Samuel goes thus, “This project is an extremely complex one. The traffic cannot be stopped as this is an arterial road, therefore we have to proceed in phases.”