Bengaluru: Service lanes along the Outer Ring Road (ORR) between KR Puram and Hebbal — a corridor lined with upscale hotels, tech parks and offices — remain in ruins even after the civic body splurged Rs 74 crore on their development.
Potholes dot the stretch at regular intervals, while loose stones cover sections near Hennur, Nagawara and Veerannapalya junctions. The main carriageway, fully white-topped, still holds up better than the battered service lanes.
"In the last two months, I have seen civic workers fill up potholes at least three times,” said Arun Prakash, a regular commuter on the service road. “First, it was tar, then sand mixed with stones. None of these quick fixes have helped motorists. The potholes are back, and the streetlights remain dysfunctional,” he added.
One side of the service road between Kasturi Nagar and Kalyan Nagar was asphalted recently, but the other side crumbles under craters. Motorists often halt and swerve into the next lane to avoid them. Large potholes slow down traffic near Horamavu, behind the Vijaya Bank Colony bus stand, and before the Ramamurthy Nagar underpass.
Between Hennur and Hebbal, the service lanes have deteriorated so badly that driving through them feels like an obstacle course. At Hennur Junction, the damage begins right at the intersection and worsens further ahead. From Nagawara to Veerannapalya, almost no tar remains, forcing motorists to crawl over loose stones for nearly two kilometres.
Ongoing metro construction adds a constant layer of dust to the chaos. Water stagnates regularly near the Ramamurthy Nagar underpass, the Hennur police station, and towards Nagawara.
The now defunct Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had taken up the road development under the High-Density Corridor Improvement Project and set aside Rs 74 crore exclusively for the ORR stretch. Footpath work drags on slowly, despite the project including a three-year maintenance clause.
A senior BBMP official blamed the delay on unfinished BWSSB pipeline work. “There is also work by GAIL that requires traffic re-routing,” the official said.
Regular commuters accuse the civic body of dragging its feet on the project, which got approval nearly three years ago. Many believe the authorities are simply stalling, leaving one of the city’s most crucial routes to crumble.