Chetana Belagere By Express News Service BENGALURU: “After the bad fall my father had on Sanjay Nagar Main Road, it was my mother’s turn near New BEL Road bus stand. Tripped over construction material left all over the place. This is a city for cars not people,” (sic) tweeted Satya Shankaran, Bicycle Mayor of Bengaluru. Several Twitteratis replied to his post, with either similar experiences or condemned the apathy of civic authorities, as footpaths are a major problem in the city, especially for senior citizens. Shankaran’s 72-year-old mother, who prefers to use public transport to commute, came home with a wounded knee and severe body pain on Friday noon. She told her son that she was walking on a footpath adjacent to Ramaiah Hospital when she tripped over metal rods and construction debris. “It was horrific to see my mother coming home with those wounds, just a few minutes after she left for Malleswaram with a few relatives. My father’s injuries, the post-accident trauma and his suffering flashed in front of my eyes. It is so unfortunate that this city has become an unfit place for senior citizens and children. It has become a city for vehicles alone,” Shankaran said. Two years ago, Shankaran’s father (78) was on his daily walk when he fell off a poorl- constructed footpath near Sanjay Nagar. He succumbed to his injuries. His mother now has a wounded knee, fever, body pain, and is unable to move. Replying to his tweet, another citizen, Vinay Sreenivasa, wrote: “Sorry to hear this Sathya! My mum-in-law also hurt her knee on a badly-laid footpath on Malleswaram 15th cross. Unless we fix our pavements, we fail all the elderly and differently-abled in our city, and all of ourselves,” (sic). According to an RTI query by Anusha Chippuri and Varun, co-founders of Footpath Initiative, pedestrian fatalities are as high as 44 per cent in Bengaluru. Meanwhile, another study conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in 2017, revealed that pedestrians are the most vulnerable to road accidents, accounting for around 30-40 per cent of deaths and injuries in various Indian cities. BBMP seems to have turned a deaf ear to this even after several citizens have taken to social media to register complaints on this. “Despite several complaints on the sorry state of pavements, which has been the bane of several senior citizens, nothing is being done. They are either encroached upon by vendors or are uneven, broken, or cluttered with construction debris. There are iron rods jutting out, electricity poles, unstable drain slabs, trees, parked vehicles and transformers on footpaths,” said Sripriya Nagarajan, a resident of Banashankari. Meanwhile, corporator of Malleswaram, Sumanagala Keshav, admitted that there has been an issue with footpaths in her ward, and that she has floated new tenders for better footpaths. “I agree that the footpaths are uneven and need complete redoing. We will soon start the work. It is very unfortunate that an elderly person had to go through something like this. Will check with our contractors and get all the construction debris removed.”

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