Today, I was thinking aloud whether to give this government less marks on its progress, when I was pleasantly surprised by this advertisement. It was regarding the railways and the karnataka government aligning to start off a road under bridge widening at Benniganahalli, on Old Madras Road. For those of you who dont know about this nightmarish hell, it is the place in Bangalore where most office goers (actually I must say millions of them) invariably waste about half an hour or more each morning just stalled in an impossible traffic jam which takes its own evil path to solve each day.
The crux of the matter was in the fact that this was a railway bridge going above the road, belonging to the railways, and was an important rail link between karnataka and tamil nadu. For the past two successive governments, this road was never widened, just due to very less political will on the matter. Of course where are politicians bothered about normal people like us? Or are they really. Well the current government harping on the development agenda has just proven that they are. And how serious they are at this.
How long did it take for an alignment to come through between the railways and the BBMP? Very few days actually. And boy, what music is it to my ears really! For one whole year, I had endured the Benniganahalli daymare (I changed my earlier word to suit the time it occurs!) praying that someone notice it. Take a look at the video showing the daymare here. There were also protests done for upgradation of this situation.
And finally BJP has taken initiative on this. In fact their splurge on Bangalore development is bound to strike the right chords with the scores of citizens who are benefitted by these measures. Now I dont really know or care how long this project takes. The ball has been set to roll. Thats all matters. I a while, I would be saving almost an hour each day taking this route and this is a really good thing in life.
So here’s wishing our CM good luck in this and his future endeavours.
Update: Here is an artist sketch showing how wide the road will now be and the view of the bridge as well!
Source: TOI, 24/2/09
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