Kadugodi Flyover

 According to the article and comments in citizen matters, I quote

"The office of the South Western Railways on the present status of the Whitefield ROB: 

"Welding of steel girders for the main span over railway track is completed. The final testing and certification of the girder is in progress. The certification is expected to come through by Aug end. The welded girder is proposed to be installed in September this year. The casting of road deck on the girder is programmed for October. Road approach ramp is nearing completion except the top bituminous layer of road surface, which is planned to be taken up after the monsoon, during October. The road over bridge is likely to be commissioned for traffic during first week of Nov."

The article also has contact information for the engineer-in-charge in the comments section.  The whole sorry saga is also described there-in.

bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/1145-whitefield-railway-bridge-2009

 The Hindu had a write up on this issue on Monday.  Not a very well researched article.  The citizen matters article was much better. Link to the Hindu article here.  Mr. Akhil Agarwal very conveniently blames the delays on "land acquisition".  If you read the citizen matters article, you know that this is either a misquote or a mis-statement.

As a first step, I think there should be a bunch of letters to the editor written to the Hindu as a response to this article.  

Almost all railway projects involving the city go at their own pace.  One cited reason is from a safety perspective which is okay.  However, aren't the necessary safety check procedures a part of the project plan? If the affected folks really want this project accelerated, they should mount a campaign targeted at the Railways.  This would mean catching the city MPs and having them raise a question in parliament on the incompetence of this whole process, citing the media reports, esp. citizen matters article.

 I only see very few options

1. Wait and watch and complain locally 2. Try to incentivise the people with the power to act to do something.  Only people who can move this forward is the railways.  This issue should become a front burner issue for them.  If Akhil Agarwal decided that this project has to be completed, you think he will not be able to get it done? I am sure he can speed this up within the natural constraints of the physics of the problem.  The issue is -> he is not answerable to anybody in the city.  He only has to answer his boss in Delhi (or Hubli?). So the kick has to be delivered from up there ... if not for the sake of this particular bridge, for the sake of all the rail over bridges in Bangalore. I was in the wheeler road area lat week... the sorry state of the shops under that flyover is yet another matter.

Right now, watching the sliding deadline, I am thinking along the lines that this will take at least until June 2010 before the bridge gets completed.

I don't know why we have to think that Parliament is some kind of holy, untouchable space.  It is our elected body.  We have gone out to cast votes -. let us go an ask them to push for us.  We will not get if we don't ask.  I think it is a lot better route than a rail roko which inconveniences common people more than our wonderful "rulers".

Agree with you though.  A mass movement is needed. One person alone cannot  do it.  However, going by the reports and messages, there are people willing to raise money to lend to the contractor to move things forward.  Can such frustration not be channelized into pushing our elected rep into action? In this case, the correct rep is the MP.

That is my 2 cents on this issue.

 I believe this area is in Bangalore Central - so this is his contituency.  Contact information is in this link.

His record is a bit thin.  He has 88% attendance, but has only participated in zero debates and asked three questions. See data here.

PRS legislative research says that 25% of lok sabha's debates are about local issues raised by the MPs, especially about urban development projects etc.  Apparently, MPs from Gujarat are the most active on bringing up local issues. See link.

www.prsindia.org is an excellent source to track legislation in parliament and to read research reports on the same. 

 One email id is this 

pcmohan@pcmohanbjp.com

www.pcmohanbjp.com/contact-me.html

I believe he is in town today.  Was listed as participant in the flyover inauguration at Mahadevapura.

from aditya jaiswal <adityaselect@gmail.com> to commn-bmp@karnataka.gov.in, cpro@swr.railnet.gov.in cc "Chief Minister of Karnataka cm.kar" <cm@kar.nic.in>, rajeev.c@sansad.nic.in date Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 1:31 AM subject Re: Re: Civic Problem: Bridge to Nowhere. mailed-by gmail.com

hide details 1:31 AM (3 minutes ago)

Commissioner BMP Sir, CPRO Railways Sir & Honourable Chief Minister,

With Reference to the article published on 'The Hindu' :

http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/30/stories/2009113059460400.htm

The reason for delay is stated as the land dispute. The flyover is almost 20 month over due now. Is this not enough time to resolve all disputes and continue construction ? Was this not planned before investing money ?

I and millions others also read that the structure will be completed by 31st  December. We are clue less whether deadline is of current year or 2010, but in either case we are 'Disappointed'. With mere 25 days away from 31st December a layman can be rest assured that flyover will be far from complete & by December 2010 we dont know if anything will remain in semi constructed structure.

We understand that there would be other important things that keep you busy but we now expect that this flyover is really long over due and you all must now take a moment and fix it.

I hope upper management, Railways & BMP will work together to resolve issues/disputes, however, Honourable Chief Minister

, request you to provide all necessary guidance & expertise in this matter.

Awaiting absolute completion date.

Thanks & Regards,

Aditya.

 Is Kadugodi flyover under BBMP jurisdiction? If yes then why is it missing from ROB list in BBMP document

Maybe because it is a SWR project?

CM has forwarded mail to BMP which i set on 6Dec. However rajeev.c@sansad.nic.in & cpro@swr.railnet.gov.in are not in loop.

Please also include MP of this area PC Mohan - pcmohan@pcmohanbjp.com

Manish, Aditya, meeting local MLA should be possible, at least to ask where this thing is stuck. Which constituency will this be - Arvind Limbavalli's or Varthur Prakash's? One is BJP, one Cong I think.

Other thing - let at least 4-5 of us lodge a complaint at Central Govt grievance website. One party here is a central govt agency - South Western Railway, so it may get noticed and acted upon.

Here is the link: http://pgportal.gov.in/

I used this text, may save you some typing time if you are okay with it:

"A road bridge over South Western Railway's tracks right next to Whitefield Station (close to Bengaluru) has been sitting half complete for a long time now. There has been no real or visible progress on this work for over an year. We have been unable to get any answers from South Western Railway. Residents living beyond this under-construction bridge face unexpected delays on daily basis. Besides, this bridge is very important for connecting Whitefield suburban area with International airport. BBMP or BDA too does not provide pro-active updates on status of this project.

Please share current status of this project with public as soon as possible, and help expedite the project."

Ack and reference # for tracking the same complaint with Govt of Karnataka.

Manish,

Appreciate your good work. Also plan on meeting the Public Relations Officer of SWR. Call up his office and fix a meeting. I am sure few of Praja members would join you for the meeting with PRO.

http://www.southwesternrailway.in/bng_p_relations.htm

@mbhatia - Please refer this Gyan page for RTI filing information.

Note: Converted to a new project post: http://praja.in/en/blog/r...