Evening showers: Flooded roads, endless gridlock on Bengaluru’s Outer Ring Road again

Bengaluru: One spell of heavy rain brought the city’s tech corridor to a standstill, once again exposing the vulnerability of Outer Ring Road (ORR) stretch to waterlogging and traffic congestion. Flooded roads and slow-moving vehicles led to massive delays across key IT hubs Tuesday evening.

The infamous Panathur stretch witnessed severe flooding despite recent widening of the railway underpass and Panathur S-Cross. Residents said while road-widening works had been completed, no corresponding drainage works were taken up, resulting in waterlogging at the underpass for several hours.

The impact was felt across ORR, with traffic snarls reported from Bellandur, Doddanakundi and Devarabeesanahalli stretches.

Pavitra Holla, a regular ORR commuter, said, “I left office around 5pm but reached home, which is 7km away, only at 7.40pm. The roads were waterlogged and the poor condition of parallel stretches added further pressure on ORR.”

Another Panathur resident said his son, who was travelling from Marathahalli in a school bus, took nearly one-and-a-half hours to reach home due to waterlogged roads and traffic congestion.