Mysore highway to be six laned
How do you react to these lines I spotted in one corner of a newspaper front-page today?
Bangalore … Mysore … four lane highway will be upgraded into a six lane one. The CM will launch … on Tuesday.
Wonderful, right? But the cynic in me said, “Who the hell is in-charge of planning this highway?” They just finished upgrading the road to four lanes, and one more round of upgrade so soon? Why didn’t that planner guy think of a six-lane highway in the first place itself? I mean just do an 8 lane road one shot and get done with it. Bits and pieces planning like this just makes the road-upgrade work more time consuming and expensive.
Wait a minute. “Expensive”? Does that mean more money in the hands of those contractors? I wouldn’t know.
A few days ago, I had learnt that they would be upgrading this highway to bye-pass a few cities along the way. That too fits into this careless “bits and pieces” planning culture.
And while this highway goes from 2 lanes to 4 to 6 at a reasonable pace, an expressway planned 10 years ago (BMIC) is struggling along. Wonder why?
Bangalore roads are full of pot holes, and Mysore is getting a 6-lane road! Phew. Stange are the way of babudom.
oh well,
when the rest of the state is taking potholed roads for daily commute blore has been lavished with metro, elevated tollways, mono, btrac, {XRR: X=A to Z}, KMRP 1 to n, what not…
lets take metro..
@ 330 cr for the 4 laning of the 112 km of B-M state highway, 2104 kms of state highways could have been upgraded at the cost of 33 kms of metro.
Thats a wonderful decision, though of late. I happened to travel from Mysore to Bangalore, in the second week of Aug. I witnessed a gruesome accident on the road that night. Traffic was halted for almost 2 hours. That poor guy was a side-by villager, and wanted take an U turn, and an RTC bus on wrong side ( right side ) clicked, and a bus coming from that side hit him leaving the man dead on the spot. That road need to be widened, and such dangerous U turns either should be removed, or provided securely.
yes Mallik, 6 laning is definitely a good decision. Adhoc sounding planning worries me. fast tracking state highway over a larger project BMIC tells me that Govt prefers spending money “directly”.
Tarle, never knew you were anti-Metro. Why do you see as a zero sum game (like Deve Gowda). 1 year worth of bribes Gowda family gets from Bellary miners (150*12 = 1800 crores), we can 4 lane the Bangalore-Hubli and Bangalore-Managlore highways too :)
Kishore, Bangalore roads are not full of potholes. Roads (as in surfaces) have actually improved a lot over last 1 year.
The answers to this organized chaos is simple.
Due to transparency act, if the estimated works is more than a few lakhs, it needs to go through a long (transparent) process of tendering. But, if you break it up like the above laning busines, you can for a cut (bribe) give it to anybody without following any rules.
Our babus are kings in finding out loopholes!!
mera bharat mahan and silkboard before you can say abracadabra, good roads vanish in a single rain!
Srimathi, yes, rains and roads do not go together, so I saw at Pune!
not against metro saar, not by a far stretch. :)
the essential point is what you have been saying –
comprehensive planning. Just merely, throwing money at solving symptomatic problems is not the way.
but in this case, the extra lanes are only service roads, from what i understand. which means they will be separate from the main 4-lane highway. afaik these service lanes are part of phase II of the upgradation project. (the same contractors who did 4 laning are doing the service lanes.)
B’lore-M’lore and B’lore Hubli are under NHAI not the state.
There are long stretches of east-west and north south arterials roads across the state such as Srirangapatna-Bidar, Belgaum-Gulbarga, Raichur-Belgaum that need upgradation and expansion on a war footing.
BMIC is a whole different thing altogether.
So just as the current 4 lane road gets complete construction will start on the 6 line road.. which means more construction equipment on the road and more stoppages… by the time this gets done (the extra lanes), the old lanes will be potholed… so “repair” work will start again..
MALLIK’S comments hit home…
One of the things that scares me about the current Bangalore-Mysore highway is that the road is great, cars are clipping at 100+ kmph, but the people along the way still cross it at the same leisurely pace they used to cross in the olden days.. and then there are all these tractors and motorbikes going the wrong way just because they dont want to go up the road for a 100 meters before making a U turn and going the right way..
Right vijay, Mallik points out a very valid thing. Making roads is not enough. Need some policing to hand in hand with it.
Highway or small city roads, no one wants to take a U turn. I have argued with many who do this, but in vain. Its always like, “its just 20 meters saar”.
Not surprised at all by this unplanned planning. This is how red-taped bureaucracy ever ready to bend in front of their political masters operate.
http://apunkadesh.blogspot.com/
ApunKD, I see your frustration. Saw your blog as well. The way you are putting the blame at netas and babus alone and not at all on “us” – the cowardly tolerant and hopelessly selfish citizens like you and me – that is not right.
One amongst us only goes on and becomes a neta or a babu. They dont drop down from hell.