Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (MS) 

Bengaluru, Nov 17: The plight of residents of the locality of southeastern part of the city that belongs to three different areas of Haralur, Somasundarapalya and surrounding areas is the worst as the civic administration considers this as no-man's-land. 

This area, incidentally, is situated between the hub of activities of the city between Sarjapur Road and Electronics City. The traffic in this area is full of chaos, the roads are filled with mud and water, street lights are not fixed and the air pollution is increasing day by day. 

In order protest against the administration's apathy, scores of residents of this locality took to the streets on Saturday, November 16 and took out a silent procession, which they named as 'Fight4Right-Citizens' March against Civic Apathy'. The march which started at Kudlu Junction at 8.30 am went on till noon when it reached Sarjapur Road. 

This protest follows a similar one that was held by people living in Mahadevapura assembly segment citing civic apathy. The people who took part in the protest included people from Kudlu Junction, Silver Country, Somasundarapalya, Mangammanapalya and HSR Section 2. 

Speaking to the press, president of Haralur-Somasundarapalya Residents' Association, Ramakrishna Reddy said, "Our neighbourhoods are sandwiched between Anekal, Bommanahalli and Mahadevapura assembly segments. It is a no-man's-land. There is no one from the civic department to look after our needs. So we were forced to take out a procession like this." 

The pathetic state of civil administration was exposed by Rajendra Kumar, one of the protesters, who said, "The administration has excavated the roads in order to lay the Cauvery water pipelines. However, they have not repaired them at all. Some patches of roads are asphalted but that is just a patch up job and not permanent. Many people who work in offices in the tech corridor use the Haralur Main Road in order to do away with the traffic jam at Silk Board. There are several high rises here, though the road is just 40 feet wide." 

One more protester said that he used the road to travel daily from Sarjapur to Electronics City but he has not found any cops to handle the traffic. He says, "There are around 15 schools in the area, which adds lot of pressure on the traffic. Countless vehicles rush during school hours to pick and drop children. There are not traffic signals also." 

Ramakrishna Reddy says that they only want the administration to make the roads proper in quality and also widen them to accommodate the present day traffic, build an underpass or flyover at Haralur and give proper pedestrian paths and clean lakes. He says so far no one except the BBMP special commissioner D Randeep has heard their woes.