Avoid these roads for safe travel

It is a bumpy ride on Bagepalli-Chelur and Thimmampalli-Billuru stretches

Marked with crates and potholes of various shapes and sizes, these stretches have proved to a nightmare for the people commuting here.

All appeals and memorandums to repair these roads have fallen on deaf ears. Even the district in-charge minister’s instructions to repair the roads have not been taken seriously.

A mockery
If a list of some of the worst roads in Kolar district is made, then the first place will go to the Bagepalli-Chelur Road and the second place will be bagged by Thimmampalli-Billuru Road, this is how the people here make a mockery of the roads. And these roads have been in these conditions for the last 25 years!
The patience and perseverance of the people of Bagepalli taluk needs to be congratulated. They have been enduring their painful journeys on these stretches for the last several years.

And yet there seems to be no respite. Speaking about Chelur in particular, infact, the place was earlier included in the Chintamani Legislative Assembly constituency. Thus the roads belonged to Chintamani constituency.
The MLAs and ministers also did not bother to something in this regard. Only in the recent elections the village was included in Bagepalli jurisdiction.

Easiest route
The Bagepalli-Chelur Road is one of the most easiest route, which connects the National Highway 7 from Andhra Pradesh’s Madanapalli to Tirupathi and from Tirupathi to Chennai. Most of the people from the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, including Bellary, Raichur and Gadag districts and also people from Andhra Pradesh take this route to reach Tirupati.

In the last few months, these roads have gone worse and as a result, most of the vehicles have been taking the alternate routes to reach Tirumala, which are round about and also far off. Apart from this, the famous hill station in Andhra Pradesh Horsley Hills, pilgrimage centre Baikonda, commerce city Madanapalli, marketing town B Kottakote are all located near Chelur. Hence, this road is often bustling with traffic.
Chelur has some of the best things a taluk-place should generally have. Chelur has the highest number of high schools and colleges, it has a Traveller’s Bungalow, agriculture produce market, hospitals, etc.

Going by the history, various associations and organisations in the last several years have been agitating to upgrade Chelur into a taluk-place.

No result
Inspite of all this, the biggest drawback is the horrible condition of roads. And the people have also held several protests and agitations for the authorities concerned to do something about them.

A few days back, when the district in-charge minister visited Pathapalya village, the protesters urged the minister to take some action.
Bowing to the pressures, the minister is said to have ordered for the repair of the roads. And yet nothing has resulted out of this.

Chelur was only 40 kms away from Bagepalli-Pathapalya. A good conditioned two-wheeler will take minimum three hours to travel on this road.
This is enough to assess what could be the conditions of the roads. The people of Chelur who use this stretch for the everyday chores should definitely be felicitated for their patience!