5 weeks after mishap, Hebbal skywalk stays on drawing board

BENGALURU: When city MLA and minister Dinesh Gundu Rao tweeted on February 28 the work on building a skywalk at the Kempapura junction near Hebbal would start in 16 days, it came as a big relief to people in the area.
The city was witness to one of the most horrible accidents on February 26 when a speeding water tanker ploughed through a group of pedestrians, killing two persons and injuring five others. Frequent users of this junction wanted swift action from the government.

But even after a month since the minister assured of action through his tweet, there is no sign of skywalk building activity at the acci dent-prone junction. Various gover nment agencies are stilling battling the procedural rigmarole.

Said local MLA Krishna Byregowda: "The (BBMP) commissioner is in touch with Columbia Asia Hospital, which has volunteered to build it. BEL was interested but has been dropped because they required more time." The project requires participation of or approval from many agencies. NHAI officials claimed they have told the civic body to go ahead with the project but the sponsor, Columbia Asia Hospital, is trying to sort out issues before signing on the cheque.

S Girish, DCP traffic (west), said the traffic police had sent its recommendation for a skywalk to the BBMP. Even the location for the skywalk had been specifically poin ted out. BBMP commissioner M Lakshminarayana said: "The estimated amount needed for the project is Rs 2-2.5 crore, and Columbia Asia will be sponsoring this. The BBMP is preparing the detailed project report [DPR], and it will be completed in less than ten days."

Dinesh Gundu Rao said the NHAI was not comfortable with the proposed hoarding which the Columbia Asia Hospital wants on the skywalk. "While the construction may not take long, these issues need to be resolved first. The inauguration can happen in a month's time", he said. "Final discussions on this initiative happened a few days ago in a meeting between the BBMP commissioner and the stakeholders. As the first step, a portion of Esteem Mall's compound was demolished last week to begin the project," he said.

Hospital authorities proposed that they will construct and maintain the bridge under the public private partnership (PPP) model provided the NHAI gave permission, and a suitable design was made available by the civic body. "To finalise the terms of reference for this PPP project, Columbia Asia Hospital has written to the chief general manager of NHAI with a copy to the BBMP . We are awaiting a response," said Dr Prashanth, general manager with Columbia Asia Hospital, Hebbal.