The road not open to us

Not too long ago, when confronted by public outcry against the distance to the Bengaluru International Airport ( BIA), that is 40 kms away from the city, the government came out with a flurry of solutions- a high speed rail, an expressway and alternate routes.While nothing has come of the first two projects, a fully developed road to the airport, pegged as an alternate to the Bellary Road (NH 7), is ready for use, but inexplicably remains closed to the public even three years after it was laid!

Built at an estimated cost of Rs 120 crore , the 26-km long road beginning at Hennur, goes all the way up to BIA via Thanisandra, Bairathi, Chagalatti and Bagalur and could easily handle over 30 per cent of the traffic currently heading to the airport via Bellary Road . Wide and easy to use except in two villages where it tapers because of land acquisition issues, the road shortens the distance to the airport by eight kms and best of all, it is toll-free. The question that begs an answer then is : why hasn't it been thrown open for public use?

There are two other roads too that could take the pressure off Bellary Road by another five to 10 per cent as they provide alternative routes to the airport for people from Whitefield, Electronic City and Thanisandra, but they too remain in disuse as there is no accessibility to BIAL from its southern end. In the meanwhile Navyuga, the company, that is still building the elevated road to the international airport continues to collect huge amounts as toll from commuters heading to it.

While the Karnataka assembly unanimously voted to rename the airport recently, not one legislator raised the gross injustice being done to commuters by the absence of these alternate roads that could make their journey to it a lot easier and cheaper.

Ask Dr Rajkumar Katri, secretary of the infrastructure development department, a stakeholder in BIAL, and he says his department has always favoured more connecting roads to the airport and so gladly financed the project to build the road from Hennur to it . “The chief secretary has called for a meeting of all the agencies concerned to get the road functional. We are working towards getting the necessary clearances,’’ he said.

But the explanation for the delay in opening of the road is dismissed by a retired bureaucrat who was part of the project. “The road is ready but you have held it closed for three years. It could hugely help people from East and Central Bengaluru going to the airport, but you are not opening it. On the other hand you have allowed Navyuga to collect a toll of almost Rs 10 lakhs a day even before the elevated project is ready. What clearance are we talking about? The road has been laid by the government, which is itself a stakeholder in BIAL. They are just passing the buck,’’ he maintains.