Roads, where are they?

There is absolutely no improvement in the condition of roads despite writing a lot about it. Mysore which is being called as second fastest growing city after Bangalore, does not have proper roads. The roads that were asphalted a few months ago have already become unmotorable.

There are plenty of stretches of roads that require immediate attention of the authorities of Mysore City Corporation. But the MCC officials seem to be in deep slumber who have not even thought about improving them.

In fact summer season is ideal time for the MCC to take up asphalting of roads and this basic chemistry is unfortunately not understood by them. It took nearly one year for the authorities to asphalt a stretch of road from R T O Circle up to Vedanta Hemmige Circle (formerly called as Ganesh Talkies Circle) that too only after every newspaper highlighted the problems faced by vehicle riders.

The question here is: why the MCC delays taking up asphalting of roads and why it wants to do repair works only during Dasara festival.

The city has been getting crores of rupees under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (jnNURM) scheme to improve basic amenities. The motto of the corporation should be to ensure basic amenities to its citizens.

When that purpose is not solved what is the point in having the local body and the elected representatives? The condition of main roads is abysmal and one can imagine the plight of roads in extension areas. The city is flocked by lakhs of visitors every year and literally they are shocked to see the condition of roads.

The MCC earmarks a majority of its funds towards the improvement of roads and it is bound and duty of the local body to spend the entire sum on it.

Delay has become order of the day even for road works. The road work between Dasappa Circle and Yadavigiri Circle is still going on with no signs of completion in the near future.

The railways has been very prompt in completing its works and now the onus is on the MCC to do its duty. This road was supposed to be ready nearly four to five months ago, but there has been inordinate delay for the reasons best known to the authorities concerned. The traffic has been diverted to Hunsur Road resulting in traffic snarls especially during the peak hours. Adding to it, installation of automatic traffic signal lights in the most ‘unscientific’ manner has further aggravated the problem. With the advent of technology in the construction sector why the MCC is taking its sweet time in completing all the ongoing works is a million dollar question.


No coordination

The other major problem the city has been facing is lack of coordination among departments. Recently, a road was tarred by spending lakhs of rupees.

But the road was dug the very next week to lay the new pipeline for drinking water. The condition of road came back to the square one. The asphalting work should have been postponed or delayed had the water board officials informed the MCC about its pipeline laying work. Ultimately it is always the poor citizens who are at the receiving end.

No words are available in the dictionary to explain the condition of the KRS Road which is busy throughout the year. The vehicle riders have to take several deviations because of huge pits dug by the water board to lay the concrete pipes.

But the problem here has been inordinate delay in the completion of works.
Unfortunately, the people of Mysore are very sombre and they have forgotten to raise their voice against injustice.

The reason why the works in Mangalore City are completed in time is because the citizens are bold enough to question the authorities if case of delay.It seems that the authorities are taking undue advantage of the sombre behaviour of the citizens and complete works whenever they wanted.