bengaluru having lost several peak business seasons traders on commercial street now see a ray of hope reason the road redevelopment work undertaken by bengaluru smart city limited benscl is almost over after nearly two yearswith the road all set to formally be thrown open in the coming week business establishments are optimistic of seeing shopper numbers increase in the coming months despite the smart city project being one of the pet projects of prime minister narendra modi civic authorities took a long time to complete the 550metre stretch work on which commenced in may 2020 and was supposed to be over within 90 days but its good that it is finally over now an apparel store owner on the street told stoi mayank r secretary of bangalore commercial association said we have been struggling for nearly two years not just with civil work but also the pandemic businesses on commercial street were affected by a huge margin we traders are now leaving all that behind us as are hopeful that business will pick up after how the street has turned out we hope to see the old charm of the streetwork to be over by tomorrowon saturday rakesh singh additional chief secretary urban development department and benscl md rajendra cholan visited the street to inspect the work work like placement of dustbins and sewage connections to the buildings will be completed by monday said cholan the weekend curfew will allow us time to clean up the street a little before our shoppers see its revamped version for the first time mayank addedthe traders pointed out that they understand the groundlevel challenges benscl faced during the entire length of this project as the street has always been busy initially we were told that they will finish the work in 90 days but only when they dug it up did they understood the issues pertaining to the soil or utilities so the delay was mostly due to operational or technical challenges it was never a matter of willingly delaying the project said sanjay motwani president bangalore commercial associationtraders say they cant wait for citizens to walk into commercial street and see how beautiful it looks after the redevelopment for a very long time shoppers have found it difficult to walk on commercial street while the pavement work was being carried out they had to enters shops through plywood planks the work completion has not only brought a great sense of relief to traders but also frequent visitors said anand dadu a member of bangalore commercial associationbenscl said it has addressed the issue of stormwater drain which led to waterlogging in julysanjay further said despite the several hurdles the traders and the project have faced we are delighted with how the street looks we have led streetlights on both the sides of the road and broad and even pavements for shoppers this revamp was something that commercial street needed as no civil work has been done here in 75 years or morecholan