Bengaluru techies & students fixed a dangerous road after civic body gave up. Videos
Bengaluru techies & students fixed a dangerous road after civic body gave up. Videos
Tired of bureaucratic delays, several Bengaluru techies and residents took to the streets to clean a hazardous stretch of road themselves. The busy Balagere Road between Kadubeesanahalli and Varthur had become a danger zone, plagued by silt that caused frequent skids for two-wheelers and posed risks to pedestrians.
Bengaluru’s civic body BBMP, citing a lack of funds, had abandoned maintenance of the road, forcing the community to take action. IT engineers, techies and school children donned gloves and armed themselves with cleaning tools to tackle nearly 3km of silt build-up that occupied an entire lane in both directions.
Social media users praised the residents who decided to take action but slammed the civic management as well.
"Techies in Bengaluru work for corporates in weekdays, earn, pay tax and self-close tickets of BBMP on weekends," one user wrote sharing a video from the drive.
Their efforts went viral on social media and reached authorities including the Chief Minister’s Office and Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar.
The Congress leader said that he has instructed BBMP officials to take immediate action to ensure the safety of residents.
“Sometimes some lessons turn out to be the best learnings, and taking cue from the incident of Bengaluru residents cleaning Balagere Road, the concerned officials at BBMP have been personally instructed by me to take immediate action. The comfort and safety of our Bengaluru residents is of priority to us, and therefore BBMP has been also instructed to ensure that no such incident is ever repeated again in the future,” DK Shivakumar tweeted, sharing an article of the drive.
The BBMP had sent a mechanised sweeping machine, but it only managed to clear 500 meters of the road before the residents took over. Even after they had cleared the road, the residents claim the BBMP did not send a tractor to haul away the silt.