It’s been three years of inconvenience for people of Lingarajapuram. While they struggle to get to work and to hospitals in the area, work on the underpass on the Lingarajapuram Main Road hobbles along. Forced to take a long detour of about 1.5 kms around the construction site, vehicles are often delayed getting to their destinations. When ambulances and the fire brigade are involved the delay can prove crucial, points out Mr K. P. Abraham, president of the Residents Welfare Association of Bangalore East (REWABE).
“Patients too struggle to reach hospitals as they are located on a narrow road beneath the Lingarajpuram flyover. The hospitals have only small ambulances, but they too take hours to reach them,” he says.
In the absence of the underpass scores of school children and the public cross the railway tracks nearby risking their lives every day, especially as the frequency of trains has increased tremendously, according to him. “Parents prefer to take their children to school themselves as a result , but the inmates of the institution run by the Association for Physically Disabled, located close by, find it very hard to get through thanks to the apathy of the BBMP and other civic agencies,” Mr Abraham grumbles.
The Road Under Bridge (RUB) was planned as a joint venture between the BBMP and railways, with the latter being responsible for the work under the railway track and the BBMP for the ramps on either side of the underpass. The problem exists because although the railways has done its share of work, the BBMP has not. “With the ramp work being incomplete the box type underpass beneath the railway track is filled with water and has become a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Many anti-socials too use the spot,” Mr Abraham deplores.
Ask a BBMP engineer and he says the work has been delayed because the utilities here have not been shifted and the agency does not have the Rs 3.5 crore it needs to deposit to ensure they are moved. As the technical hurdles continue, so do the people's struggles with trains and traffic in the area.