Bengaluru: Noise pollution plea lands on deaf ears

Bengaluru: The move to demolish Jayadeva flyover to make way for Namma Metro’s elevated corridor between Gottigere and Nagawara is giving local residents sleepless nights, due to the use of noisy equipment by the BMRCL.

The local residents claim they have approached metro officials and the police about the noise, but lament that nothing has been done so far.

"Due to this Metro construction, drilling machines and cranes function till 1 am. We have senior citizens in the area who get disturbed due to the noise and we have even complained many times. Can’t they do this during day time,” wonders Prakruthi B., a BTM Layout resident.

"We all know that during such a large scale demolition, noise is inevitable. But we only want them to stop heavy works during night, so that it will not affect our sleep. They can conduct it during day time and continue other small works at night. The authorities should adopt sound mitigation measures at construction sites. We have seen that in other cities the residents have filed cases against rail corporation after being exposed to noise levels above 100 dB (decibel) during nights. We should also do the same thing," said Shankar K.L., another resident near Jayadeva flyover.

However BMRCL officials claim that they generally stop noisy works at 10 pm itself. A senior BMRCL official told Deccan Chronicle, “We stop heavy work during night, but sometimes during emergencies we continue till late night. We avoid noisy works like piling after 10 pm, but it is not possible to stop all activity after 10 pm as it will further delay the project. However, we will check with the construction site and request the public to cooperate.”

The BMRCL technical team had made it clear that the demolition of Jayadeva flyover was the only way to build the Metro interchange station for the R.V. Road-Bommasandra line (Reach 5). The flyover demolition was last year postponed as it would affect traffic movement.

In the last week of December flyover demolition and construction of service road was simultaneously taken up.

‘Flyover to go’
The flyover will be replaced by a multi-level structure, providing elevated Metro and road connections. It will also house interchange stations for R.V.  Road-Bommasandra (Reach 5) and Silk Board-K.R. Puram (Phase 2A). The new 2.84 km flyover is estimated to cost Rs 133.54 crore as per the previous tender documents.