Dug-up JC Road dashes hopes of businessmen

Vasudha Zora

Bengaluru: The very busy JC Road, which is lined with a number of godowns, offices and businesses, is now a stretch of heaped rubbish made messier by drain water, which chokes up the dug up hole. Not only is it bad news for the many business owners, who have closed their shops due to the lack of business and accessibility, it also raises sanitary concerns in the area.

A majority of the establishments nearby are surrounded by storage spaces with daily-wage labourers carrying large and heavy boxes over their shoulder and sometimes on their heads, which brings up life threatening concerns.

The surrounding areas are a classic example of the apathy of the authorities and the drawbacks of infrastructural planning that lacks guarding rights of the citizens, furthermore adding to their despair. Garbage lies rotting on the streets right next to shelters where the poor reside.

“This little path that is in front of my shop and sometimes even covers my shop entrance is now the most commonly used passage for labourers because it is the only way for them. I do distribution work and I am unable to commence my business with this road blockage. It is the epicentre of the two major roads. Many of my friends who had their shops and storage spaces have closed and left. We have complained to the authorities countless times but they never seem interested in paying us a visit and when they do, it is filled with false promises.” Said Gopinath (name changed), a trader and shop owner whose shop is directly exposed the damaged road.

The small industrial locality has multiple issues that should be urgently addressed by the authorities. Many people have encroached patches of lands and laid out their tents next to piles of garbage, the narrow alleys reek of human remains and the nearby open drain.

The damaged road is not just a hindrance but a health hazard as it kicks up a lot of dust, causing pulmonary illnesses and other problems affiliated with diseases spread through unhygienic spaces. When News Trail insisted on getting the contact details of the engineer assigned by the BBMP, the officials were hesitant and went to the extent of giving incorrect details.

The correct number never came forth. “I have worked here for many years. During rains, the road gets inundated. We have been manually clearing the dirty drain water from the past two years now in order to avoid our shop getting flooded.

It carries an unbearable noxious smell and a lot of mosquitoes, many of my companions got dengue a couple of months back.” Said an enraged Aslam who works as a daily wage labourer was kind enough to show the affected areas.

As government agencies continue to be ignorant to such dire needs of citizens, it is unlikely that the reform in infrastructure will see a change. There is no sign of garbage collection nor a regular monitoring system that puts a lot of innocent lives staying in and around the vicinity vulnerable to some of the worst kinds of diseases that could even be incurable.

For all of this, failure of the administration is the root cause