BANGALORE: Begur was originally a village that is now seeing the light of development. At the moment it is one of the biggest wards under the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Pallike with a total area of over 18 square kilometres. The ward in South Bangalore was said to have been a prominent place during the rule of the Chola Kingdom.
A historical tank and a beautiful old temple (Naganatheshawara temple) dating back almost 1,300 years can be seen there. Another attraction here is the Begur lake that is filled with lotus flowers.
Luckily unlike the other lakes in the city, this lake has not yet become a garbage dumping spot.
However a visit to the ward will probably make you feel as though you have swallowed a kilo of sand, especially if you are on a two wheeler. This ward has a number of small layouts. Most layouts here are scarcely occupied with only a handful of houses in each of them. The two major problems faced by the many residents of this ward are mud roads and lack of Cauvery water.
Vishwapriya Nagar is one of the areas in this ward. Though the main road to this layout is asphalted, the alleys branching out are yet to be tarred.
While the process of asphalting has begun on a few roads, the rest are still waiting. According to Dev Raj a resident, “The asphalting has been sanctioned.
Though the work has begun, the completion seems like a distant vision.” The houses here depend up on the borewell water for their daily consumption.
Almost all the houses here have an external pipe that connects to that on a water tanker. “We get only borewell water.
The BBMP officials have been saying that they will get us the connection for Cauvery water for the last six months. Nothing has been done so far,” said Rathana Rajesh a resident.
Rathana also complained about the public transport system. She said, “There are a lot of buses that connect Begur to other parts of the city but they have no time table. You never know how long the next bus will take to arrive if you miss the first one.”Areas like Dodda Kammanahalli are nothing short of a rural village. Tiny huts, broken and narrow roads are characteristic of this area. This area is a long way from any kind of development. They do not even know who their corporator is.
Akshayanagar is one of the more developed areas in the ward. The road widening and asphalting work is on this area as well. Akshayanagar initially had a lot of complaints that were registered on the BBMP website. Some of the cases were that of poor street lighting, mud roads and thefts. The most prominent of the road complaints were that of the road leading to St Ann’s school.
The road has still not been tarred and there were no signs of any kind of development work either.
As far as the street light and thefts are concerned, Vidya a resident said, “There are lampposts on the road with connection. But every time the lights are fixed, someone comes and steals the bulbs.” Another resident, Revathy said, “All the officials are very cooperative.
A few days ago, one of the borewell’s was not working, the BBMP officials promptly came and fixed it. Also as far as the thefts are concerned, the number has definitely reduced.” Though development can be seen in bits and pieces in this ward, it has a long way to go. The biggest task at hand for the BBMP in this ward is asphalting all the roads. The corporator, M Srinivas was not available for comments.