Kadugodi divided over road widening

First, there was elation and then dejection. Residents living along the public roads in Sigehalli and Chennasandra panchayats in Kadugodi were happy when told they have grown ‘bruhat’ and become a part of BBMP.

That was six months ago when the BBMP had not yet chalked their walls with the (in) famous red marks for road widening. Now, the residents pine for the olden days when they could set up shops and shanties without difficulty. Dealing with panchayat was far easier than handling the BBMP. “I wish it remained a panchayat,” says Ammini Gopan, owner of a small eatery at the foot of Kadgodi flyover. Now she will have to shift as her leased shop may go for widening.

There are hundreds of petty shop owners along the Kumbena Agrahara Road that leads to KR Puram. The residents of Belathur Colony, most of them belonging to scheduled castes, will lose their livelihood to road widening.

The colony is not quite legal, though, people around say. They had come up a few decades ago and become part of the Kadgodi economy. Ramilabibi, one of the residents of Belathur, looks sad when she says “What is the point of widening roads in village? It is okay in city, but why trouble us? I don’t know where to go if they come after us?”

 But property owners, who have comfortable plots along the road, say road widening is not a bad idea. The 30-ft road is proposed to be made an 80 ft road which will take away a sizeable traffic off the Whitefield Road and redistribute it to KR Puram via this road.

“Widening is useful considering the great growth Whitefield had with IT-ITeS firms strewn all over and the consequent massive volume of traffic,” says Subbharaju, a former corporator of Hoodi ward.

Subbaraju will lose more than 5 metres of his land and most of the plots are marked between five and 5.5 metres. “We have not yet received individual notice,” he says. They got only the general notice the BBMP issued to those property owners likely to surrender land for road widening. There is no mention of any monetary compensation, only TDR. 

For a change, most property owners on Kumbena Agrahara Road have not much difficulty giving up land for TDR as they have ample setbacks to build. But the trouble, points out Raja Swamy dealing with recyclable goods, is that many hutments and shops on either side of this road were set up without proper sanction. “They may all lose their shelter and livelihood unless the BBMP decides to build a shopping complex and accommodate them,” says Swamy.
“I can’t build another house,” says Shivaraj Katti whose two-bedroom structure may go. “Why do they want to make this 30 ft road 80 ft? Traffic is not heavy on this link road.”

Katti is afraid the halcyon days of this place will be gone once the widening take place and huge traffic get diverted. Pointing to the platoon of langurs roaming leisurely around, he said, “These poor chaps will also lose their property. They live on the tall, knotty banyan trees standing on the ‘Aralikatte’ (banyan tree platform), a few metres from the road, where people sit around and spin yarn to pass time.

But those connected with realty business are elated at the prospects of land value going up after widening. “Road widening will help traffic flow and raise  land value. Today, it is Rs1500 per sq ft and it will double after widening,” says BN Manjunath, a real estate agent in Saptagiri Layout.

Most people living on either side of the road, however, have no inkling about widening. A talk with those running small shops revealed that nobody had told them what was going to happen to this road.

People in Kadugodi junction that sports a BMTC bus depot and Whitefield railway station are mystified at the Palike’s ‘misplaced priorities’. They say hundreds of people getting down at the bus station take high risk crossing the wide railway path where scores of trains whistle past any time of the day and night. “Instead of road widening, they should have built a skywalk to help these people,” says Abdul Karim Raza, a kiosk owner on the fringe of railway property adjacent to the bus depot.