BBMP encounters more problems

Even as residents of Basavanagudi protested against the construction on Saturday, BBMP workers found a huge rock that is bound to delay the project and a hasty job by the BWSSB in shifting a water pipeline led to the wastage of diesel worth Rs 3 lakh!

Hundreds of litres of diesel were drained on the road at Tagore Circle when water from a damaged Cauvery water pipeline gushed into the diesel tank of a petrol bunk on Saturday morning.

The workers at MSR Service Station noticed a change in the colour of the diesel and stopped fueling the vehicles. Later, the water-mixed diesel was drained out onto the road, making the the stretch from Tagore Circle to Gandhi Bazaar slippery.

While blaming the BWSSB for shifting the pipelines in a casual manner, Krishna Murthy, the owner of MSR Service Station, complained that diesel worth Rs 3 lakh was wasted, apart from the damage caused to the tank. BBMP officials, however, maintained that they were not aware of any damage to the pipeline, as the work was being carried out by the BWSSB, and the latter were unavailable for comment.

Stumbling block

Meanwhile, BBMP workers found a huge rock at the construction site which is likely to delay the completion of the underpass. While the discovery of the rock has baffled BBMP authorities, workers have been trying to break the rock using a drilling machine as blasts cannot be performed in this densely populated area.

Sources in the BBMP said that the rock was not found during the soil test and the deadline was fixed accordingly to ten months. “We had dug trenches at every ten metres to check utilities, rocks, type of soil and underground water. However, this rock was between two trenches, so we could not detect its presence. We now have to break it to go ahead with the work,” said the source.

Residents protest

Braving rains, a large number of residents of Basavanagudi staged a demonstration at the construction site on Saturday.

The activists of Save Gandhi Bazaar movement and the Save Bangalore movement shouted slogans against the BBMP for being indifferent to people’s voice and for chopping trees to make way for costly infrastructure projects.

Eminent playwright, H G Somashekar asserted that despite BBMP’s claims, it was true that the civic agency had started the project without informing the people. Retired Bangalore University professor, K M Nagaraj, termed it as a ‘conspiracy against the historic layout of Basavanagudi’. He remarked that with the way the City was being planned, not a single tree would remain in Basavanagudi and Bangalore. He wanted the bureaucrats to stay away from taking decisions in a haste unless BBMP was replaced by an elected body. The residents also expressed their apprehensions over the timely completion of the project, now that a rock has been found midway.