BANGALORE: Veerannapalya Circle was probably one of the most congested areas in the city. A few years ago the roads in the locality were extremely narrow and incapable of handling the heavy vehicular movement it was seeing. However, this problem may see a solution with the construction of two flyovers adjacent to each other. The commuters are thrilled with the news as they feel that not only will the construction reduce traffic congestions and jams, it may also reduce the number of road accidents which used to otherwise occur here.
Veerannapalya Circle Main Road witnesses heavy traffic during the peak office hours. The snail pace movement of the vehicles is capable of putting a deep frown even on a joker’s face. The long and endless jams have been causing problems for every commuter who ever decided to use the road. While most are happy with the idea of having the flyovers, there are few who are not very pleased with the idea.
On the one hand while the flyovers will ease the stress on the commuters, residents and shop-owners who had to forfeit their land for the development work are not the least bit happy about the move. While the corporator of the area, B Govindaraju claims that none of the houses or shops were demolished to make space for the flyovers, the locals say otherwise. Vasundra, a resident who had been living near the main road where the construction is in progress claims that half her house was demolished to pave the way for development.
“My restaurant business has totally gone down. I hardly get any customers in my restaurant due to the messy condition here. While the BDA has cleared the area around my hotel, they are yet to reimburse me with the damages they caused to my building,” said Nagaraj, owner of a restaurant near the main road.
The construction of the flyover began over a year and a half ago and work is still proceeding at a very slow pace. While the engineer at the construction site was confident that the work will be completed by the end of the month, the local corporator of the area stated another five to six months before the flyover is ready for use.
The engineer on the condition of anonymity said, “By the end of this month we will finish this work. BDA is also constructing flyovers at Kalyannagar and Hennur. In Hennur we will construct an underpass as well.”
The corporator on the other hand also stated that the work will take some more time to finish. “About 75 per cent of the work has already been completed,” he said. Clarifying the accusations regarding demolitions, he said, “We have only demolished those buildings which were built on encroached land. We have only demolished a service station and a local bar,” he added.
So far Rs 30 crore has been spent on the project. The BDA authorities were unavailable for comments.
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