WHITEFIELD: To draw attention to poor civic infrastructure in the neighbourhood, Whitefield residents will march in protest this morning.
The protest, from 10 am to 1 pm, will begin from various assembly points and congregate in ITPL, an important landmark in the IT Capital.
Continuous rain over the past couple of weeks has worsened the condition of the main roads, arterial roads and the sub-arterial roads in the area, leaving two-wheeler riders, who find it hard to gauge the depth of these craters, the worst affected.
Zibi Jamale, of resident welfare group Whitefield Rising, said, “This protest is for the children who are stuck for long hours in their school buses, the farmers who can’t get their produce to the market, the auto-wallahs and cabbies who have bear huge repairing costs, small-business owners and corporate employees.”
An anchor will lead protestors from each assembly location. Starting at different locations will ensure no traffic disruptions are caused and residents don’t have to travel too far to take part.
The epicentre of the protest, the country’s first IT park, is now weighed down by poor civic infrastructure. Residents are frustrated by the authorities’ lackadaisical attitude to citizen demands for basic amenities.
The demands
Vincent Thomas, an engineer who lives in Whitefield, said, “Roads where I live are dug up every other day. Authorities claim they are laying sewer lines but sewage overflows all the time and floods the road.”
Residents planning the protest say getting in and out of Whitefield and neighboring areas has become a nightmare. One kilometre takes an hour to navigate. To top this, pedestrians have no pavements. Requests to the authorities have fallen on deaf ears, citizens say, leading them to protest.