Commuters demanding restriction of events near Manyata to ease up traffic.

BENGALURU:The traffic chaos that is being caused because of the concrete-laying work which is undertaken on the 2.7km stretch from Hebbal to Hennur, the residents who are living closeby to the Manyata Embassy Tech Park (METB) have approached the police, to make sure that permission for any mega events in the area shall not be granted.

K Jayaraman, the president of the, Manyata Residency Niv Asigala Kshema Abhivrudhi Sangha said that, “Commuting on the stretch during peak hours is a nightmare. It takes up to 50 minutes to cover the 5-km distance from Hebbal flyover to our homes behind the tech park. When big events are held at venues like Manpho Convention Centre, the number of cars on the road increases by 100%, aggravating the chaos.”

The ongoing work of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has made the traffic to come down at a very slow pace, with commuters taking 45 minutes to one hour to travel a distance which was earlier being covered in 15 minutes. The Palike was supposed to start concretising the entire width of the 2.7km corridor on the 27th of August and is supposed to complete it by November 11. However, plans changed when a trial run led to a severe traffic congestion, which led to taking a decision of begining with only one of the two lanes in the first week of September.

Office employees of the association met the traffic police a few days ago, and asked them not to permit any events at the Manpho and other convention centres like White Orchid until the whitetopping is done, to prevent the traffic situation from worsening. "Last Sunday, people were stranded for two hours because of the programmes being held at the two convention centres next to Manyata. This Saturday too, the Sunny Leone event is likely to cause a gridlock," said a resident.

As Sunny Leone's event has been scheduled long ago, which is creating problems for the jurisdictional police to consider the restriction of events, "Big events like the Sunny Leone performance were scheduled a long time ago and nothing can be done now. For one entire month before the project started, we publicized the project along with the Palike and asked commuters to take alternative routes," said a traffic police officer.