Works being carried out on a footpath on Kengeri-Kommaghatta road. | Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR
Residents of Kengeri-Kommaghatta had been putting up with pothole-filled bad stretches of road for several months now. Appeals to redo the stretch fell on deaf ears. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kommaghatta, to lay foundation stone for the suburban rail project on Monday, has come as a blessing in disguise for the residents of the area.
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Multiple agencies — Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), and Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) — are working on a war footing to redo road stretches in the area.
The roadworks in the area have been so intense that several schools in the vicinity have sent out emails to parents saying there may be a delay in the pickup and drop of children due to ongoing roadworks in the area.
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“The residents of the area had been running pillar to post to get these stretches fixed, but to no avail. Now that the Prime Minister is coming here, there is a sudden spurt of activity with hundreds of labourers working day and night everyday. We hope the common citizens who use the roads everyday are also given the same priority,” said R. Sampath Kumar, a resident of Kengeri.
Not only are the bad stretches of roads being redone, agencies are putting up streetlights, installing roadside grills and painting pavements. While BDA has taken up asphalting of a 5.5 km stretch of road from Shrike Apartments to Kommaghatta, BMRCL has sped up redoing Mysuru Road from Jnananbharathi to Kengeri.
BMRCL and BBMP recently received flak over potholes on Mysuru Road. When quizzed on the sudden priority for the works, BDA Commissioner M.B. Rajesh Gowda maintained they were part of routine works taken up in Visvesvaraya Layout, Anjanapura and Banashankari VI Stage in preparation to hand them over to the civic body.
Similar works are underway on International Airport Road where the Prime Minister will land in Bengaluru at Yelahanka Air Force Base and proceed further towards Kengeri. The stretch of road he will use has been asphalted, medians painted and new plants planted on the medians.