Road widening works on schedule

Road widening works on schedule
Five arterial roads in the city are being widened to speed up and streamline traffic movement, says Leena Mudbidri


Bangalore's bugbear for the past few years has been the traffic mayhem. Most commuters peg down one of the reasons for this to be the lack of wide roads to accommodate the ever-increasing slew of vehicles. Prompted by the Bangalore Traffic Police (BTP), the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has decided to go ahead with the task of widening five major roads in the city to ease the burgeoning traffic.
Throwing light on the ambitious road widening projects of the BBMP that were launched four months ago, K R Srinivas, special commissioner - projects, BBMP, says there has been progress in the works already set rolling. "The BBMP has taken up road widening works on Bellary Road, Race Course Road, Kasturba Road, Palace Road and Nrupathunga Road. Presently work has been started on Race Course Road," he says.
This road proposed to be a six-lane one, will be widened by 30 metres on both sides from Ananda Rao Circle to Basaveshwara Circle. Presently, the footpaths on either side of the road and boundary walls of the acquired property on both sides have been demolished to pave the way for this project.
Regarding the preliminary task of acquiring land for the widening project, Srinivas says that this has been achieved by the BBMP well ahead of time. "Tenders for the franchising of the road works have been finalised and in a day or two we will hand over the project works to the agency," he adds.
Describing the nature of development works on these roads the special commissioner said that Bellary Road will have a new underpass at CBI Junction. The other roads will have footpaths and the number of lanes will be increased too.
He also added that while the work is going on it could cause some inconvenience to commuters but the traffic police will extend their assistance in diverting the traffic well in advance. "We are in talks with them to make some of the one-way roads into twoway when the development work is in progress," adds Srinivas.
The BBMP's budget allocation for this the development of 40 major and arterial roads in the city is Rs 150 crores. "The funds for the development of these five roads too will be used from this budget," states Srinivas.
When the date for completion of these works will be fixed will depend on the new government. Till then, the commuters can only be optimistic that the project has got underway.