It has been a regular practice for street vendors to dump garbage on footpaths. Either garbage occupying most of the footpaths in the city, or there are no footpaths at all. The busy Kanakpura Road near the Bharath Nursing Home and the Factory outlet at Sarakki is one such instance. Besides, the Bangalore Metro construction activity on this road has completely taken over the existing footpaths here.
Taking a walk down the lane which is adjacent to 100 feet ring road, one can see heaps of garbage strewn on the main road. Here, pedestrians are left with no option but to walk on the road which is the narrow Kanakapura Main Road. “This is National Highway 209 which connects to Kanakapura and further. The vendors start their business early in the morning and also in the late hours. We have to literally drive over the garbage. Though traffic police personnel are deputed here to drive away these vendors, no action has been taken so far. The garbage is left untouched especially in front of the nursing home. This is how the National Highway is maintained,” said Govind Raju, a resident.
However, laying of new sanitary pipes by Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has further added to the problems of pedestrians here. Uneven footpaths, broken slabs are also common here. Chandrashekhar M, another resident of Sarakki said, “Walking on the footpath is a Herculean task as untreated sewage water flows on the footpath forcing the pedestrians to walk on the middle of the road.”
Despite repeated calls, Corporator S K Nataraj failed to respond to any of our calls.