Bengaluru: For residents of central Bengaluru’s Shantinagar constituency, patience is wearing thin. Roads have been dug up for laying pipes, pavements are dotted with debris and clouds of dust have become part of daily life. Fed up with the prolonged disruption, residents are simply asking: When will these roads finally be restored?Several key roads in the constituency, including Richmond Road, Langford Road, Lakshmi Road, parts of Hosur Road and Berlie Street, have been dug up over the past few months for a slew of underground infrastructure works, including water-supply pipelines and sanitary pipeline upgrades. Motorists and pedestrians are forced to weave through potholes, uneven surfaces, loose gravel and dust every day.Residents say what was supposed to be a temporary disruption has begun to feel endless.The problem is particularly acute on roads around busy educational institutions, including St Joseph’s University, where large numbers of students, pedestrians and motorists use the roads through the day. Students are increasingly being pushed onto the carriageway.Langford Road has emerged as a major pain point. With traffic diverted or affected by ongoing Metro construction on Hosur Road, the road has seen increased vehicle movement. The unfinished stretches have only added to the chaos.“Pavements are occupied by debris. Elderly people and schoolchildren are risking their lives as they are forced to walk on the road. Dust from the road is adding to vehicle emissions and causing health problems. Worse, honking has increased as vehicles jostle to stay on the unbroken stretch,” said a trader at Nanjappa Circle, questioning why the local MLA or BECC officials were not expediting the repair work.The sentiment is echoed by Richmond Town residents, who ask why the roads cannot be restored immediately after pipe-laying is completed on each stretch. They also want to know how much longer they must wait for normal, dust-free roads.Inset –1 (Haris mugshot)Wait for another three months, says MLAMLA NA Haris defended the decision to postpone large-scale asphalting, saying the priority is to complete all pending underground utility works first so that newly laid roads do not have to be dug up again.Once the works are completed, the roads will be fully restored and asphalted in a phased manner. A major project under way in Shantinagar is the expansion of the water-supply network. Of the 108 km of pipeline planned, around 68 km has been laid. Similarly, of the nearly 15,400 proposed house service connections, about 6,400 have been completed.Haris said asphalting roads now would only lead to repeated digging by various agencies, wasting public funds and inconveniencing residents. “I understand the problems people are facing because of the ongoing road works. However, we have to bear this temporary discomfort to get durable road infrastructure. The idea is to complete all underground works in one go and then restore the roads. Once the roads are asphalted, no further cutting will be permitted unless absolutely necessary,” he said.
