9 years and 15 deadlines later, will Hennur flyover in Bengaluru see light of day?

Bengaluru Development Minister KJ George promised that the project would be complete by Jan end, but residents barely see any work being done on it.
9 years and 15 deadlines later, will Hennur flyover in Bengaluru see light of day?
9 years and 15 deadlines later, will Hennur flyover in Bengaluru see light of day?

You don’t need to be an expert to know that building a less-than-kilometre-long flyover should not take more than a year.

A mixture of incompetence, lack of communication between Bengaluru’s civic bodies – primarily the Bangalore Development Authority – and a land dispute has ensured Hennur Flyover, which has missed 15 deadlines now, has not yet seen light of day.

The contract to build the 920-metre-long flyover was awarded to Nagarjuna Construction Company in 2009 and it was estimated that the flyover would be ready for use by December 2011.

One of the reasons for the delay a land dispute that arose between the landowners and authorities, and the matter eventually went to court.

This half-built flyover was supposed to make the stretch between Hennur and Lingarajapuram a signal-free corridor.

However, it has now only made the life of Hennur residents worse. Traffic snarls due to the reduction of road space, poorly constructed service roads and flooding due to construction material blocking drains has made life hell.

Frustrated and angry, the residents in the area held a demonstration in October, 2017, demanding prompt action to restore civic infrastructure.

The protests finally triggered a reaction from the authorities. The Bengaluru Development Minister KJ George (also MLA of the area) announced that the project would be completed within 75 days. The BDA commissioner that said the work will be finished by December.

But it’s January 2018 now and work has barely progressed.

“It’s hard for an optimist like me to believe that the work will finish within the set deadline. It’s not that the work is not going on, but there are only very few workers on the ground and seem like they are there just to send a message that work is on,” Nadia Zackria, a resident of Hennur tells TNM.

“Currently, the road is an absolute nightmare. It’s just a dirt track and now the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board has begun work. We have written to the BDA multiple times and sought a meeting with the BDA again with not much luck,” she adds.

Another resident of the area, Ranjith says, “I doubt that a flyover can be built in this time. I only see two-three workers at the site. The situation has worsened since October; white-topping work in the other stretch of the Outer Ring Road has affected traffic flow here too.”

The 80-foot road has now been reduced to just 20-feet.

At the time of writing this article, Minister George was reportedly inspecting civic works at Nagawara. His staff said, “The Hennur Flyover will be built by the month end.”

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