Motorists can soon heave a sigh of relief as the much delayed steel bridge at Shivananda Circle is nearing completion and is set to be opened for the public by the end of November. This is provided rains do not play spoilsport.
Senior civic officials said that assembling one of the down ramps and asphalting the flyover was remaining and would be completed in 15 days. “It should have been completed by now. But the rains have delayed work. We are waiting for a stretch of rain free days to especially finish the asphalting work,” said Lokesh, Executive Engineer, BBMP, in-charge of the project.
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who also holds charge of Bengaluru Development, will likely inaugurate the flyover by November end, senior officials said.
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The 492.84 metre grade separator at the critical junction was planned as a steel bridge to ensure minimum inconvenience and fast completion. But the project, commissioned in 2017, has been delayed for four years now. It faced opposition from local residents and saw legal hurdles, which were sorted out with design changes in 2018. The construction was supposed to be completed in nine months, but the project missed several deadlines and is now finally nearing completion.
A senior official said while the legal hurdles delayed the start of work by nearly two years, bottlenecks in land acquisition and shifting of water and sewage lines under the roadway by Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) delayed it further. “Added to this was the labour crisis during the pandemic since March 2020 and the exodus of migrant labourers from the city to their hometowns once the lockdown lifted. It took several months for them to return to the city, to only leave again during the second wave,” a senior official said.
However, criticism about the flyover still remains.
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“We need to see how the flyover affects traffic patterns in the busy junction. The railway underpass ahead of the flyover towards Seshadripuram is still narrow and may still be a bottleneck, we fear. Despite the flyover, we do not think we can remove the traffic signal at Shivananda Circle below,” said a senior traffic police official, who did not wish to be named.