Now, it’s Sarjapur Rising: Set ORR right

Bengaluru: More than two-thousand people were seen voicing their distress in a silent protest about the condition of the ORR-Sarjapur Road and the long-standing apathy towards it. The ‘FixMyRoad’ campaign took place on Friday at noon. The two- hour- long protest walk saw hordes of people walking up to Iblur from Ecospace, Wipro Junction and Cessna Park dressed in orange, vermillion or red clothes. Many were also seen holding placards.

"I spend about three hours in traffic daily and out of this about one hour is spent to exit from EcoSpace campus to Ring Road. There are more than 5 lakh employees in EcoSpace with just one gate that opens into a choked Ring Road and in the case of an emergency, evacuation would be a herculean task. There is a bigger issue that the authorities are neglecting. More buildings are under construction in the same premise. I can’t imagine how the authorities will deal with an emergency situation and I feel we all are at risk every day as we go to our offices." says Tarun Kant, an employee at EcoSpace.

His company had sent a circular to the employees to participate in this long pending civic issue. It has been quite some time since the commuters and residents living at the ORR and Sarjapur stretch have been battling traffic congestion, bad roads and the inefficient planning by the authorities. Not just people from corporate houses but school children also were seen participating in the event. "There is no grid plan in the area and it has the highest density compared to the rest of the city and because of the high density it has compounded our woes and we feel that solutions are difficult and the authorities will not take heed." says Sameer Shisodia who adds "We wanted the authorities to take notice and have been planning such a peace protest since a long time."

The ORR stretch from Ibblur to Marathahalli is home to Ecospace, Embassy Tech Village, Prestige Tech Park and Cessna Business Park. In addition there are hospitals, scores of commercial buildings, offices and more than 50,000 residential units. Several lakh square feet of space, both residential and commercial, are under construction.

Ajay Prabhu, COO of QuEST Global who also participated in the protest said, "While the city is termed as the technology capital of the country, it has not made any concrete progress in terms of infrastructure and traffic management. It is disheartening to see employees struggle every day and spend most of their time on the road trying hard to commute even short distances. As a corporate that stands by its objective to engineer positive change in the society, we want to support this movement to help our city become future ready."

Speaking about the issue, Sameer adds, "We need better road surfaces and proper traffic planning so that traffic can flow smoothly. We have fewer roads than we need and we need better road surfaces so that there are fewer jams. And then there is also the overall design issue. Also, one of our demands is more transparency in the government projects so that we know what the plans are and how our money is being routed."