There’s a hole near Town Hall

There’s a hole near Town Hall
BY CHANDRASHEKAR G.
BENGALURU







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Ambulances are often caught in traffic jams
The already crowd ed Town Hall and City Market areas have for the last several months seen more chaos than usual due to the delay in constructing a pedestrian underpass here.

The work on the underpass started last August and has still not been completed, say traders, whose business has been affected as a result.

The underpass, which should have been completed and thrown open to the public about six months ago, was supposed to make things easier for pedestrians. But with the work being delayed people are finding it extremely difficult to cross the road at the Town Hall junction. Those visiting the Yellamma Dasappa maternity hospital are worst hit.

Even the hospital ambulances are often caught in traffic jams here thanks to the apathy of the BBMP and contractors involved in building the underpass , say businessmen and others in the area. “The junction has become a death trap as vehicles speed past, with little care for the pedestrians,” adds one of them.

The City Market and SP Road being commercial hubs see a huge number of people every day. The BBMP decided to build the underpass at a cost of Rs 1.97 crore to make it easier for people to cross the road and to help smooth flow of vehicles.

But the area today is still littered with debris and construction material as work on the underpass hobbles along. Coolies carrying loads on their heads too have a tough time negotiating the traffic.

Angry owners of bicycle shops and the Kamath Restaurant filed a petition in court asking it to restrain the BBMP from going ahead with work on the underpass, saying it was affecting their business. Mr Keshan Bhat of Kamath Restaurant says the BBMP did not inform traders about the underpass before starting work on it.

“Repeated complaints to the BBMP authorities to speed up the work have not helped a bit. BBMP engineers are not overseeing the work and the contractor is going about it according to his whims and fancies” Mr Bhat complains.

BBMP engineers assure the work on the underpass will be completed in four months. They claim the work was delayed as the excavators hit hard rock, which had to be removed. This has now been done and work will now progress briskly, they say.

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