Bengaluru: Students, Techies Clean Up Balagere Road Silt After No Action By Authorities; State Govt Reacts

Students and techies in Karnataka's Bengaluru came together to clean a stretch of the Balagere Road after deciding not to wait for authorities to take action over builtup silt.

The slit buildup on between Kadubeesanahalli and Varthur made the busy Balagere Road slippery for two-wheelers and dangerous for pedestrians as well.

Frustrated by the situation, several IT engineers, college students and even schoolchildren, decided carry out a cleaning drive, pictures and videos of which have surfaced on social media and has even prompted the state government to react.

Several people wearing gloves and removing the silt build-up on the road with cleaning tools can be seen on visuals doing the rounds on social media.

Bengaluru's civic body, BBMP, turned down multiple requests by the residents to clean the roads, citing a lack of funds, according to an NDTV report.

Social media users reacted to the cleanliness drive by the residents. One user wrote, ''Techies in Bengaluru work for corporates during weekdays, earn, pay taxes, and spend their weekends fixing BBMP's neglected issues.''

Many netizens also slammed the authorities for their inaction. ''This is shocking. Bangalore municipal bodies should be ashamed of themselves for harassing honest tax-paying citizens," a user wrote.

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar also reacted to the cleanliness drive and said that he has instructed BBMP officials to take immediate action to ensure the safety of residents.

He wrote on X, "Sometimes some lessons turn out to be the best learnings, and taking a cue from the incident of Bengaluru residents cleaning Balagere Road, the concerned officials at BBMP have been personally instructed by me to take immediate action.

"The comfort and safety of our Bengaluru residents is of priority to us, and therefore BBMP has been also instructed to ensure that no such incident is ever repeated in the future," he said.