Bengaluru demolition drive to resume today as CM Siddaramaiah talks tough

BENGALURU: Bulldozers will start roaring in Bengaluru once again.Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has directed municipal authorities to “immediately“ resume the drive to clear encroachments on storm water drains.

“Why has the drive stopped,“ Siddaramaiah asked Municipal Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad at a review meeting on Wednesday. “It needs to start immediately.“

Prasad responded that the drive stopped for want of surveyors from the revenue department. “We have recalled the surveyors and the drive will resume tomorrow (Thursday),“ Prasad told the chief minister.

The demolition drive, which began in the first week of August, lasted only a month. In this period, as many as 141 houses built on 29 acres of storm water drains, or rajakaluves, were demolished.

Scores of families living in their homes for decades were rendered roofless overnight.

The drive itself was a result of flooding that several parts of Bengaluru witnessed due heavy rainfall in late July.

“Twelve surveyors have been deputed. The drive will resume at Chikkabettahalli in Yelahanka, where a 1.3 km-long rajakaluve has been encroached by 12 vacant plots,“ Prasad told ET after the meeting.

The CM also reviewed progress on various infrastructure works taken up under the Nagarotthana project.He asked the BBMP to finish the work by March 2017, warning officials of “strict action“ if they fail to meet the deadline. The government has earmarked Rs 3,208 crore for 201617 and Rs 4,092 crore under the Nagarotthana plan for Bengaluru. The CM set a July 2017 deadline for the ongoing TenderSURE work on Residency Road, Richmond Road, Nrupathunga Road, Modi Hospital Road, Siddaiah Puranik Road and Jayanagar 11th Main Road.

Further, Prasad said TenderSURE work on Brigade Road, Church Street, Malleswaram, Gandhinagar, Kalasipalya and Palace Road will begin February 2017.

White-topping of arterial roads such as Outer Ring Road, Mysuru Road, Bannerghatta Road, Hosur Road, Magadi Road and Old Madras Road will start January and finish by December, Prasad said. The Rs 300 crore eight-lane signal-free corridor in Okalipuram is expected to be ready by December 2017, he added.