BANGALORE: It was known as Grant Road earlier, but after the famous Vijay Mallya promised that he would maintain the road, it was named after his father Vittal Mallya Road.
Today the road has a grand name, but little else. And every morning as traffic crawls on this road, and cars line up, pushing pedestrians to no-man’s land, the Mallya promise rings hollow-- loud and clear.
And what is more, the BBMP instead of gently reminding Vijay Mallya of his word, is waiting for things to move from his end. The Palike is still waiting for United Breweries to relay the stretch as per the original agreement, and say that they would do their bit only if Mallya does not act soon. What about the name then? The BBMP is unsure whether it would play a name game and bring back Grant Road again.
A drive down Vittal Mallya Road, would tell you that it is in dire need of help.
The residents and the business community put up in this locality have made several complaints about the bad condition of the road, but in vain. The issue of footpath encroachments and the laying of the new sanitation pipelines have delayed the road work.
Earlier, the developers of the UB City had approached the BBMP with a proposal to rework the Vittal Mallya Road. The proposal for the upgradation included laying of a concrete road, installation of street lights and beautifying junctions.
It is said that some Palike officials insisted that the company give them the required funds to execute the work which the latter refused leading to the present deadlock.
Since then, there has been no further talk on developing this road.
When asked about the development of the road, Palike sources informed that the road work was left incomplete only because there was a proposal from the builders of the UB city that they were interested in developing this particular stretch as per their standard of work.
“If BBMP had to lay the road, it would have completed it long ago but there was no work taken up because the issue was before the Court and also before the Lokayukta. Now the Water Board is carrying out some replacing of the pipelines and once they are done, we would lay the road if the UB City builders do not come forward, as promised,” said a senior BBMP official.
The official added that the road was damaged with the movement of heavy trucks carrying the construction material to the construction site.
The roads will be restored soon by the BBMP if the developer fail to take up the road work at the earliest.
“There is no dearth of funds with the Palike and the work here was dropped only because the developers had some other plans for the development of the roads and junctions surrounding the UB City,” said the official.
UB city developers, however, refused to comment on the issue.