Frequent civil works to repair water and electrical pipelines at the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens damaged roads and joggers’ track, with potholes and bumpy roads threatening joggers and walkers safety.
However, after a 50-year hiatus, the Horticulture Department has taken up asphalting of roads inside the Lalbagh, making them perfect for morning walkers and joggers.
Several citizens had raised complaints about the damaged roads during the ‘Janaspandana’, an interaction programme organised by DH-PV in November 2018.
Horticulture officials had promised that the project to repair and completely relay the roads was in the pipeline. And now, the work is finally happening with all the roads in the botanical garden scheduled to be asphalted over the next week.
Dr M Jagadeesh, Joint Director of Horticulture (Parks and Gardens), told DH that the work has been taken up after a gap of 50 years.
“Even though we had repaired roads in patches every now and then, there was no one-time asphalting work taken up at Lalbagh in the past 50 years,” Dr Jagadeesh explained.
“The Karnataka Road Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL) is carrying out the work. Of the total 5.15 km stretch, the engineers have asphalted 0.75 km since Wednesday. The asphalting material is being delivered from Mangaluru and the rest of the stretch will be completed in a week’s time,” he said.
The civil works are done every day after the jogging and walking hours, without coming in the way of the walkers. “While the work area has been cordoned off from the walkers and joggers, the other works are completely stopped during the morning and evening hours,” a senior officer said.
The department has decided not to cut the asphalted roads in future as it is difficult to frequently take up repair works inside the gardens. “We have adopted a resolution of not to cut roads in the future for any pipeline works,” Dr Jagadeesh said.
“Instead, we have laid around 100 underground pipes across the internal roads at an interval of 200 to 300 feet using advanced machines without cutting the roads. Chambers have been built on either side of the pipeline with a depth of three feet and this will help in laying cables and pipes in the future.
“This apart, slope gradient of the roads has also been scientifically created to ensure easy draining of rainwater and thus avoiding erosion,” he said.