When the going is tough, the tough get going. And that’s what has precisely happened last weekend from Vibgyor school to Somasandrapalya Main Road. When the BBMP turned a blind eye to the gaping potholes on this stretch, the residents pooled in the money to fill them up with their own funds.
Says Vilas Deshmukh of Harluru Somasandrapalya Residents Welfare Association: “This is a public-funded pothole filling project with major contributions coming from Navayuga, a small-scale construction firm whose proprietors – Nagarjuna and Narasimha – are residents of this area. The rest of the monies came from the volunteers of our road group.”
The residents spent around Rs 25,000 to fix the roads last week in addition to sweating it all out while the work was being executed. “The work is still pending and we will continue on the coming Saturday as we need to complete it right up to Chinmaya school. So far, we completed from Vibgyor school to ND Oliva apartment complex.”
‘Corporator was of no help’
When the residents approached HSR Layout corporator (Ward 174) Gurumurthy Reddy, he was of no help to them. “The potholes were in this state for the last eight months and only getting worse whenever it rained, causing many issues to school kids, office goers and the elderly,” says Vilas. “But our request to the authorities and the local corporator went unheard.”
About 20 volunteers managed the work from 10 pm on Saturday night (June 8) till 4 am on Sunday morning, including the diversion and management of traffic to protect the concrete filling. The residents involved included Ramakrishna Reddy, Rajesh, Srinivas Rajesh, Prasad, Durga, Kunal, Subbu, and many kids, among others.
Will this act shame the authorities and prompt them to do a thorough job of fixing all the potholes in the HSR ward remains to be seen.
