Positive dialogue with authorities fruitful: Activist

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Civil society activist and Citizens For Citizens (C4C) founder Rajkumar Dugar emphasised the need for optimistic engagement with authorities to be able to resolve civic issues.

He made the comments at the News Trail conclave ‘Declog Bengaluru’ at the Lalit Ashok Hotel in Bengaluru on Wednesday. He pointed out the fact that his organisation had been successful in making lives easier for motorists in the city because they engaged with Bengaluru Traffic Police and Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited.

“If you look at the Mekhri Circle Underpass, earlier, there had been metal gratings there. Everyone passing through there, even if it was the chief minister’s car, had to apply brakes. We convinced Bengaluru Traffic Police to remove the rails. The road was asphalted and now you can just zip through,” Dugar said. “The other issue was the projection near Minsk Square,” he said. The projection was a pier about six inches above the ground, which was meant to be an alignment marker for future BMRCL projects which had proven to be a traffic bottleneck.

“At first, BMRCL said the space was meant for future projects and resisted our requests to remove it. Later on, the current BMRCL MD Anjum Parvez agreed to remove it (with necessary approvals), he added. Dugar said that he and his organisation had made several other recommendations to various departments, who had listened to him but hadn’t implemented the same as of yet.

He insisted that a “positive attitude” was necessary to combat civic problems. He added that Bengaluru, despite being infamous for traffic jams, had enough public transportation to reduce vehicles on the road, adding that the same had to be expanded for them to be successful.

“The first alternative is the expected. Its BMTC (Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation). The other is Metro. The third unexpectedly is railway (commuter rail) and then we have cabs and autos for last mile connectivity,” Dugar said.