Digging shuru, traffic bandh

Traffic on the Sarjapur Outer Ring Road came to a standstill for five hours thanks to unauthorised road digging by BESCOM

Traffic on the Sarjapur Outer Ring Road came to a standstill for five hours thanks to unauthorised road digging by BESCOM

Techies who took the Sarjapur Outer Ring Road (ORR) yesterday were stuck on the stretch for five hours between 4 pm and 9 pm thanks to road digging by the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM).
BESCOM allegedly decided to dig stretches of the road without consulting the Outer Ring Road Companies Association (ORRCA), which led to a traffic snarl that had 4,000 vehicles strandedu00a0 between Marathalli to Eco Space.

BESCOM workers dug the ORR yesterday, which led to a traffic snarl between Marathalli and Eco Space. Commuters were stuck on the stretch for five hours

"The stretch is totally messed up. At least 4,000 vehicles are stuck and the people are in no mood to stop digging up the road," said Rajesh S, who commutes regularly from Marathalli to Iblur.

"This was completely unexpected. It threw the traffic out of gear," said Vishwanath S, secretary, ORRCA. "It is one of worst traffic jams on the stretch in recent days.
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BESCOM is to blame for this. Their staff dug the road despite knowing that traffic is high in the evenings."

"The chaos also led to an accident," added Vishwanath. "The police were not informed.

Neither were we. We could have arranged worked out alternative routes if we had been informed. This is a textbook example of how authorities work without any coordination."
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The traffic police blamed BESCOM contractors for the chaos.

"We gave them permission to make minor repairs. They should have sought our permission before digging the roads to such an extent," said Subhash Chandra, PSI, Madivala.
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"They dug too much. When we learnt of what they had done, we asked them to stop the work."

The Other Side

BESCOM officials, however, denied they had not sought permission. "We had sought permission to dig about four feet of the road, only to find that the underground cables were damaged beyond our estimation. We had no option but to cut a wider swathe of the road. When we realised that there was a traffic jam, we stopped work," said Aiynapur, a senior BESCOM official.