BANGALORE: Two weeks back, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) had initiated road-widening works at Jayanagar near Madhavan Park at an estimated cost of `18 lakh. However, this has not gone down very well with a few residents in the locality, as they complain that in the name of development, a good amount of area covering the footpaths have been taken over by the authority.
When City Express spoke to a few residents, fuming residents blamed the area corporator for his lackadaisical attitude. Vinay, a resident said, "The road-widening works is being carried on by shrinking the footpaths." When we took the matter to area corporator Nagaraj, he said it is being done to create car parking space and reduce traffic snarls. "However, our contention is, there has to be some formal procedure for the same, how can one arbitrarily just encroach the footpaths," said Soumya C, another resident who is a regular visitor to Madhavan Park, and added, "I come for a walk here every evening. The footpath here is crowded with visitors, especially during the mornings and evenings. With the footpath shrinking in size, this is causing great inconvenience to the pedestrians."
When City Express contacted the area corporator Nagraj, he said, "The road widening works was an urgent need in this area and we had to take over portions of the footpath. This will bring down the traffic congestion that hits this place during the peak hours. It will further create parking space for vehicles." He further added, "The footpath was 10 feet and now it is 8 feet which is good enough for pedestrians to walk without any hindrance. There are footpaths even with just six feet at other places in Bangalore."
The area corporator assured that the remaining works will be completed in the next 15 days. He concluded saying, "We have to lay the tar road. There are other works to be completed, which will be taken care of in the next two weeks."