After getting an approval in November 2017 from the traffic police, the BMRCL’s plan of action includes widening of the road, before, demolishing the six- lane flyover near Jayadeva hospital
Bangalore, April 11, 2018: The ongoing construction of a metro line in BTM Layout’s 100 feet road is affecting the business of shopkeepers placed behind the BMRCL barricades.
The approval from traffic police was granted in November, 2017 and the barricades were put alongside the pathway on the road for the road widening project. These barricades have been there for six months, now, and the work is going on at a snail’s pace.
Mr. S. Mundra Shetty, owner of a Patanjali store on the main road said, “I am running this shop from the past five and a half years and we are facing huge losses because of the BMRCL barricades. Every 15 days the workers will come and do some part of the work and for the next 15 days nothing will move around here.
I am thinking to close the shop and try for other places where I can get more business. But the decision of changing the shop will cost me more.”
The civil contract to build the metro lane was given to Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) and URC Construction at the cost of 797.29 crore rupees in July. This project will take approximately 36 months to be completed. This includes five elevated stations, road-cum-rail flyover and road widening works.
Mr. A. K. Mathur, Executive Director for Civil department at BMRCL for the project said, “We are not aiming at barricading the shops and also if any development work starts there is always a possibility of getting the business affected or disturbed. Also, we aim to complete the project within the deadline.”
Also, Rahul Rana a local resident said, “The construction work is going on for six months with no development. I travel from BTM 2nd stage to Ecospace everyday for work and the increased traffic, due to the barricades and the construction work that is going on is a big problem.”
“We have got the traffic diversion plan approved by the Traffic police.,But still the traffic police is allowing heavy traffic on the road in a hope that traffic will get diverted by itself (Not entirely sure of the meaning). We will be proceeding with the Jayadeva flyover demolition work in the month of June-July. We do not want to start the demolition work and the current widening road project from Silkboard junction to Jayadeva to happen simultaneously as it will be more inconvenient for the people travelling on the road. We plan to widen this stretch first and then we will put the barricades in the middle of the road to start the metro construction”, Mathur added.
A similar case happened in 2006 when Traders’ Association of Chinmaya Mission Hospital (CMH) Road in Indiranagar litigated against the BMRCL’s move of passing the metro line via CMH Road consequently affecting their businesses. The CMH Road traders petitioned that Metro Line be aligned along Old Madras Road via Adarsh theatre as then there would less twists and turns and would save the local economy. Despite various efforts, metro line was still built along the same line with one station on CMH Road and the other on 100 ft. road instead of two stations on one road.
Urban Planner, Anirban Choudhary explained, “Metro is a very capital intensive project and the time required will be more in these kinds of projects. Metro is a surface based solution that the government is trying for connectivity. Also, the encroachment problem is very prevalent in BTM layout 100 ft roads. The government should set up development control rooms and the existing encroachments should be demolished.”
