Works on widening roads suspended

Works on widening roads suspended
Bangalore, Dec 8, DH News Service:

The State government has directed the BBMP to suspend all road widening projects taken up across the City.


Minister in charge of Bangalore City R Ashok said the decision to halt the projects was taken following complaints from the people against these projects. “Besides, we are planning to make the roads (selected for widening) signal-free in the coming days. We don’t want these projects to overlap,” he said.

However, the move that follows announcement of the BBMP polls, is also probably to please the people opposing these projects in the City.

The BBMP had taken up the works on 72 major roads, including Tannery Road, Mallathahalli Road, J P Nagar Main Road and Bangalore-Mysore Road. These projects were at various stages of completion.

Another reason the minister cited for taking the decision was that widening of 72 roads was estimated to cost around Rs 170 crore while converting them into signal free would cost just Rs 70 crore.

Expediting other projects

However, sources in the BBMP said that, with the election dates now in the open, the State government has reportedly decided to speed up all ongoing projects related to grade seperators in the City. It is said there is ‘pressure from certain quarters’ to get all the flyovers and underpasses completed well before January 15, the day when the election code of conduct comes into effect. The government has reportedly asked the officials to give up their lethargy and speed-up the work so that the projects can be completed in the next 40 days time.

“Anybody can guess what kind of pressure we will have in the next 40 days,” said an officer in the BBMP.

According to the sources, in the next 10-12 days the underpass at Nagawara-Madiwala would be completed. There had been pressure on the contractors to get the Kadirenahalli Underpass and Puttenahalli Underpass work completed before January 15.

The BBMP sources said they are trying hard to let the traffic flow in at least one portion of the Kadirenahalli underpass, while the work would continue on the other side of the underpass.

Nearly 1,300 small, medium and major works are going on in the city and there are strict instructions to get the work done as early as possible. The total value of the money involved in the entire project is around Rs 900 crores, said the sources.