Price of progress

Price of progress
Super-plush shopping malls and high-end fitness stations dot the road. Metres away, pigs feast on leaking drains. Elegant homes stand tall next to vacant sites, where garbage piles up and migrant labourers relieve themselves.

HSR (Hosur Sarjapur Road) Layout, developed by the Bangalore Development Authority in 1988, is a classic case of the extremes. Identified with bad roads and flooding since the 2005 monsoon, the Layout has been brought under the purview of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike since September this year. The residents aren’t quite kicked about the change of guard.

Home to bureaucrats, MNC high-fliers and retired civil servants, the Layout has been facing issues of crumbling infrastructure. Residents across the seven sectors of the Layout maintain that apathy by the BBMP as well as the BDA has led to the crunch. For starters, the open drains are a ticking health bomb. K Anantha Bhat, president, Federation of HSR Layout Residents Welfare Associations, says the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board has been turning a blind eye to the open drains. “These drains have become a breeding grounds for mosquitoes. There’s also the issue of sewage water seeping into borewells,” says Bhat.

Flooding issues
S Vishwanath, secretary of the Sector 6 association, refers to the recent flooding of Madiwala Lake that inundated many areas on Hosur Road and says the situation could be worse in the Layout. Poisonous waste water released by a manure plant of the Karnataka Composite Development Corporation near Koodali, near Sector 3, has been another issue of concern, says H M Javali, general secretary of HSR Layout Residents’ Welfare Society (Sector 3).

Ponnappa, President of HSR Sector 5 Residents’ Welfare Association, says that a house in 12th Main Extension continues to be prone to flooding whenever it rains. “Further, open sewage drains have also caused major problems in this area. We have reported this to the BWSSB, but there hasn’t been any action,” he says.

Ananth Rao, a resident of Sector 1, echoes residents’ resentment over lack of hygiene in many pockets of the Layout. “Garbage disposal is another major issue. BBMP pays Rs 30,000 a month for the contractor to pick up waste. However, the roads continue to be littered. It has been two weeks since the roads were swept last,” says Rao.