Mosque Road Cross plagued by official apathy

Vasudha Zora | NT

Bengaluru: The residents of Mosque Road Cross are upset with the poor quality of the road and the crumbling infrastructure of the area. The road is a nightmare for both the pedestrians and motorists. The roads are riddled with potholes and they become much worse when it rains.

Ali, a resident of Jeremiah road said, “I got injured a week ago, I was returning from work at night when I was struck by the uneven road, I fell on my right side and have severely hurt myself in the arms, legs, and back.” His neighbour Syed Zayn Hussain too fell on the same spot last month.

He said, “I have lived here for 35 years and use this road every day and in the last 20 years. No repair or maintenance work has been carried out. There are no streetlights. I had to be under bed rest which jeopardized my business procedures by over a week.”

The broken road covers half of the Mosque road main road and next to it is a stormwater drain that remains clogged and emits stench round the clock. The area has many black spots and the residents have to keep their windows and doors closed to keep the stench at bay. Due to a lack of proper garbage disposal practices, many residents complain that at midnight people dump their garbage down the drain.

In order to stop this practice, the residents even covered the drain with tin covers, but they continued to fling their trash bags across the tin cover. Homeowners pay extra money to garbage collectors to clean the trash accumulated at the entrance of their homes, which gets worse during weekends.

Some claimed that the waste generated at slaughterhouses on Tannery Road are dumped into the drain. The drain is a breeding ground for mosquitoes, and is also home to water snakes, bandicoots, and an ever increasing population of rats and cockroaches.

Habiba Subhan, a social activist and organizing secretary of Frazer Town Residents Welfare Association (FTRWA) told News Trail that she has written several letters to Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage (BWSSB), Traffic Department, and Storm Water Drain (SWD), and contacted the officials in charge of maintaining the road and adjoining areas.

However, she lamented that nothing has been done and they pass the buck. Meanwhile, the residents have lost all hopes of any improvement of their area