BENGALURU: The
collapse of the foot bridge that connects
Isro Colony slum with Cambridge Layout in
east Bengaluru has come as a bolt from the blue for residents as they have no way to access the main road. Despite danger, the slum residents now walk on the
collapsed bridge to reach Cambridge Layout.
“It is not safe to walk on what remains of the bridge, but this is the only way out to fetch water or to access the main road,” saidRocky Melvin Fernandes, from the slum. “Since it’s summer holidays, there are a lot of children playing in the slum all the time. They will be curious and it will be hard to keep them away from bridge. It is a danger.”
Another resident, who was peeved that no one from the BBMP inspected the damage, said, “How will women cross over in an emergency? Or what if it rains in the night?”
Vijayalakshmi S, II PU student of a BBMP-run college, said she was leaving home for college when the incident occurred, resulting in pandemonium all around. “It was shocking,” she said. “I had to stay home and miss class.”
The slum, located off Sai Baba Temple Road behind ESI Hospital, is on defence land, but residents say their families have been living there for decades. “The BBMP built the bridge eight years ago after much persuasion,” said Shabari Nathan. “There are legal battles going on with regard to shifting of the slum from defence land to Bidaralli in Bengaluru south.”
Nathan said desilting of the drain could have led to the collapse. “The columns supporting the bridge collapsed,” he said. “It, perhaps, weakened after BBMP began desilting work a couple of months ago. The silt had now been dumped in the middle of the drain.”
Times View
While those who were on the bridge when it collapsed must count themselves lucky — the damage to life and limb could have been far worse — the incident is a grim reminder of poor maintenance of the city's civic infrastructure. Must it take a calamity for the civic agency to realise that its infrastructure is crumbling? Considering they have been living on the land for decades, the residents of Isro Colony deserve a permanent road. A permanent solution to the land dispute would be the cherry on the cake.
