With pieces of metal flying by

In a rapidly developing city like Bangalore, there is always some roadwork or construction going on.

Often there are sites that are not marked properly.

Spillages from puddles and metal pieces keep hitting the passers-by time and again.

Bangaloreans voice to Metrolife about the issues they face around ‘work in progress’ sites.

Sreeja S, a young professional, says that moving around such work sites is dangerous and annoying.

“There is always a chance of one’s clothes getting soiled by water or dust. But there are also instances when a metal piece can hit a motorist, who in turn could get alarmed and cause an accident,” says Sreeja.

Other motorists like Desiree Vickers, a final-year student of BBM, says that most work sites in the City rarely have signs around of them.

“With no warning signboards, one can’t differentiate between the work site and ongoing traffic. The motorists just speed by trying to avoid getting affected by the work in progress. There have been many accidents due to such situations,” says Desiree.

She also brings one’s attention to the dust and debris piles that were there in front of Garuda Mall till a few months back.

“The motorists would slow down as it would get extremely dusty and vision was minimal,” she says adding that this is a common sight at most ‘work in progress’ sites.

Adding to these woes are sparks from welding work on flyovers or even road work, which can affect motorists, says Vikram Arjunan, an MBA student.

“People can actually lose their eyesight when such sparks fall on them. Also sometimes, the water around such sites can fall on two wheelers and cause the rider to skid,” he says.

When asked about the situation, the authorities say that maximum attention is given to make the construction work safe.

M Lakshminarayana, commissioner, BBMP, says that it is a requisite to put markings near the road work and he has been keeping a watch on the same.

“As one must have noticed, we have proper barricades around our Tender SURE work. Apart from them, only when asphalting or repair work on minor patches is done, markings are not made,” he clarifies.

Venkataraju, engineering chief of BWSSB, says that most of the major relaying pipeline work in the City is complete and there were proper markings of ‘BWSSB work in progress’ mentioned at such sites.

“Only when the fixing work is small, such markings might be missing,” he points out.

“Markings around road sites are the duties of the respective agencies. Determining the gap between traffic and work site, diverting traffic or even assistance by the traffic police is determined according to the proportion of work. The traffic department guides different local bodies about the procedure,” says B Dayananda, additional commissioner of planning and traffic.

Prod him about data on accidents that have occurred due to work sites and he recalls an incident in Basavanagudi, which happened a few months back, where a motorist drove right into the ditch which was dug up for BWSSB work.

“Other than that, we do not have any records of traffic or motorists being affected by such spillages or road sites. Whenever road work is done, the traffic police has to be consulted first,” he wraps up.