bangalore the irony was shakespearean there was somanahalli mallaiah krishna inaugurating the richmond junction flyover which even a lay person will agree is a stupid piece of planning and declaring in the same breath that the rs 98 crore sirsi circle flyover was a colossal waste of time money and effort for it served no objective chaos still reigns supreme below at the kr market kalasipalyam new tharagupet and briand square no more big flyovers just mini ones to clear the jams at busy intersections so picture this dear longsuffering bangaloreans on one hand youll have the optic fibre cable guys along with the bwssb and telephone department digging up the roads and sidewalks and in a dozen of the citys most crowded junctions contractors will be excavating to lay the foundations and pillars for these miniflyovers the mini any kid will tell you is a fashion statement that makes its rounds globally every decade even though there is enough cloth being manufactured to wrap everybody around like a mummy or to put it in engineering terms mini means the very minimum so imagine these romanstyle culverts popping up at such spots as bashyam circle trinity junction anand rao circle vijaynagar circle and the seshadripuram junction three bmtc buses in a row and therell be a traffic jam on the culvert just like in those ancient days when muledrawn carts fought for space with the roman battalions marching to war there already enough chaos at the mekhri circle as the contractor takes his own sweet time building the grade separator there is enough hypertensioninducing freeforall at the subashnagar bus terminus where a pedestrian subway is taking ages to complete whatever happened to such concepts as planning deadlines road engineering why is it that every new infrastructure project spells so much trouble for the citizen krishnas cabinet has a fair share of ministers who are welltravelled like bk chandrashekar rv deshpande and roshan baig surely they know how infrastructure is created in other countries with the minimum bugbear to the citizenry surely they and a panel of experts can be called upon to check on new projects when itc built an overbridge across busy sankey road to connect windsor sheraton traffic wasnt stopped or diverted for a single day when the iisc constructed its pedestrian overbridge linking the gymkhana with the main campus traffic was stopped for just two hours thats not magic thats clear thinking we surely dont want krishna standing on the tarmac of the devanahalli international airport in 2004 and saying we should actually have built a space port for ten years from now people will be rocketing on a shuttle from one corner of the globe to the next allenmendonca1indiatimescom