Mathikere bridge to be ready by November

The Hindu

BANGALORE: The Rs. 14-crore Mathikere-Gokula Railway Overbridge (ROB) will be ready for public use by November, Health and Family Welfare Minister R. Ashok said here on Wednesday.

He told presspersons after inspecting work on the project that he had directed the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) officials to complete it at the earliest.

The officials told him that work on the project, which was started in December 2005, was delayed because several utility lines had to be shifted. The BMP is executing the 700-metre construction in coordination with the railways and both will share the cost equally.

A portion of the Brindavananagar slum on the BEL side of the ROB had been acknowledged as a bottleneck. "To clear this hurdle, we will have to demolish 10 to 12 houses in the slum and widen the stretch. The affected families will be rehabilitated," the Minister said.

During the visit, members of the Sundarnagar Residents' Welfare Association complained to the Minister that the delay in completion of the project had affected their daily life, especially with regard to transport.

"As the road has been closed for the work, we have no buses to our area. We have to walk at least one kilometre either towards BEL side or Mathikere side to board a bus. We appeal to the authorities to introduce at least two mini buses to our area," association president S.B. Ramachandra Rao said.

The Minister assured them that their problems would be looked into. Apart from BMP and BDA officials, MLAs V. Somanna (Binnypet), N.L.Narendra Babu (Rajajinagar), S. Raghu (Shantinagar) and Dinesh Gundu Rao (Gandhinagar) accompanied the Minister.