Bangalore Development Authority — Civil works left incomplete with demands for bribes

Hello,

I am a resident of
2nd Cross, MuniReddy layout,
Doddakalasandra, Kanakapura Main Road

On Thursday, 18th June, people from your Civil Works department have come to my road and dug up the entire sidewalk for creating drains, leaving one stone per house for us to enter the house. On being asked if the work would take a lot of time (since our car was in the basement and needed to be removed), they assured my mother that the work would be completed in 3 days.

It has been 11 days since and not only has the work progressed very slowly, the laborers are constantly harassing the residents for bribes. We are asked for money during their lunch time. On refusal to pay, they don’t do any more work and just sit there till 5pm when they leave. I have seen no sign of a supervisor of any sort to check the work they are doing and our constant supervision is necessary to ensure that what limited access we have to entering our house remains.
They have additionally dug up the road and during the monsoons, a dug-up mud road is quite dangerous. In fact on Saturday, I almost lost control of my bike because it sunk into the soft mud.

While the residents have always wished for a tar-road in the layout, we did not realize that it was to come at peril to our lives and would disrupt our routines for months.

We are being held ransom in our own houses by a bunch of greedy laborers who will not work unless we bribe them. When I spoke to the Joint Commissioner of the BBMP, I not only received empathy but prompt action was taken in finding out who was responsible for this work. When it was found to be the BDA, they regretted that they could not help me any further.

On the other hand, my calls this morning to the BDA were met with arrogance and instant dismissal – the BDA is an organization that is meant to exist for the benefit of the people. If you treat the same people with disrespect and refuse to address their complaints in time, you should not be elected to such a public post

I urge you to take the strongest action against the guilty and restore our peace and road to us at the earliest.