Heavy vehicle entry: Cops to end ban a day earlier to ease worries

Bengaluru: Responding to public outry on the ban on entry of private heavy vehicles into the city between 7 am and 10 pm for the duration of Invest Karnataka,  the police has decided to end it a day earlier, on February 4,  according to sources. Consequently, people will not have to put up with the ban on February 5, the last day of the global investors’ meet.

But the decision has not brought cheer to the  Truck Owners, Agents and Drivers Federation, which estimates  the ban has resulted in a loss of Rs 1,500 to Rs.2,000 crores per day. Said Mr. G R Shanmugappa, chairman of the federation,”We will incur a loss of up to Rs 8,000 crore because of this.”

The ban has hit vegetable growers from the Chikkaballapur and Doddaballapur  the hardest as many of the vehicles carrying  vegetables to the city are not being allowed in during the day. “Many of the vehicles carrying our vegetable supplies are parked on Ballari road leading to heavy losses,”  said Mr. Muninanjappa, a vegetable wholesale dealer in KR Market. But the ban on the entry of private buses into the city has eased traffic on the roads. According to the BMTC officials, all the major roads have become less congested. “The Majestic area saw heavy traffic jams both in morning and evening owing to the private buses. But now we don’t see this,” said a senior officer.

Rahul Gandhi to attend IK2016?

Seven partner nations, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Sweden, Japan and South Korea are participating in Invest Karnataka, which is expected to rope in investments to the tune of Rs 2.6 lakh crore in 116 projects. Delegates of these nations have already arrived in Bengaluru, according to sources.

Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley will inaugurate the event in the presence of  Union ministers,  Nirmala Sitaraman, Suresh Prabhu and Nitin Gadkari. Although industrial department sources claimed AICC vice president, Rahul Gandhi would also participate, the Chief Minister’s office said his arrival was not certain. Noted industrial bigwigs, Ratan Tata, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Anil D Ambani, Gautam Adani, Uday Kotak, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Sajjan Jindal and Baba Kalyani are expected to attend, official sources said.

Over 1,000 cops to keep event safe

The city police have made elaborate security arrangements for the two-day Invest Karnataka-2016 meet at the Palace Grounds. A team of 1,060 policemen of various ranks, including ACPs, 59 police inspectors, 89 sub-inspectors, 131 assistant sub-inspectors, 514 head constables, 72 policewomen and 179 policemen in plainclothes have been deployed to ensure security. Fifteen platoons of KSRP and three platoons of rapid action force too will be used for the security purpose. The police have installed 125 CCTV
cameras at the venue.