Facelift for 6 roads near majestic area soon

BENGALURU: Roads and pavements in and around the busy Majestic area will get a facelift according to TenderSURE guidelines in the next two years.

This time, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has picked six roads around `old Bengaluru's' mobility hub for comprehensive development.

“The work has been tendered and forwarded to the government for approval. The project will be ready in two years once the work order is issued to a contractor,“ KT Nagaraj, Chief Engineer (Project Central), BBMP , said.

The upgrade of a total of 10.61 km of roads is expected to cost Rs 125 crore. This puts the cost of developing each kilometre of road at Rs 12 crore. Reason: Officials said the TenderSURE roads will have features such as uniform standard carriage way width, road intersection development, dedicated corridors below footpaths to lay conduits of essential amenities such as electricity, water, sewage and OFC that eliminates the need to excavate the roads for repairs and proper storm water drainage system on both sides.

In 2012, the state government allo cated funds to improve 12 roads such as St Marks Road, Residency Road, Cunningham Road and Nrupathunga Road according to TenderSURE guidelines. The 16-km road improvement cost the exchequer Rs 201.79 crore.

Though the authorities claim that these roads have a lifespan of 30 years as all utilities are shifted under the footpath, there were several cases of these roads being dug up.The St Mark's Road, the first to be developed on TenderSURE model, was dug up a couple of times for reasons such as faulty electricity cable and leaky water lines. Sewer lines also continue to run under the carriageway of Cunningham Ro a d , Residency Road and Richmond Road.

While supporting the need for wide and well-maintained footpaths, Vinay K Sreenivasa, member of Alternative Law Forum, was critical on the amount of money spent on shifting utilities. “Why is the government spending Rs 13 crore per kilometre for a model where we put all the cables below the footpath, leading to tree felling? This prevents planting of tree saplings and harvesting rainwater. The government must review old TenderSURE roads before going ahead with new works,“ he said. For mer corporater and BJP spokesperson NR Ramesh said the Congress-ruled state government was spending more than what the BJP government spent for the same work. “Even the development of National Highway costs only Rs 2 crore per kilometre. The new work do not include seating facility, rainwater-harvesting pits and street lights,“ he said.