The Commonwealth Games (CWG) in 2010 had brought with it projects that not only added to the aesthetic beauty of the national Capital but also contributed substantially to civic utility. Foot overbridges (FOBs), street benches, swanky dustbins and advertisement panels flooded significant areas in the city benefitting many pedestrians and local commuters. However, four years down the line, this cynosure of Delhi has turned into an eyesore. Where on one hand, elevators and escalators at foot overbridges are defunct — in some cases even broken — on the other, benches and ad panels have been vandalised and dustbins are spilling all over the place. The Public Works Department (PWD) blamed the public for lack of civic sense while the common man is busy blaming them for procrastinating.
The Yamuna Sports Complex (YMC) in East Delhi is one such location where the once multipurpose benches and ad panels with dustbins attached are now nothing but a blot on the landscape of the area. At gate no. 4 of the complex, one will only find broken windowpanes of the guard’s room and wrecked ad panels. Even the pavements, which held fancy benches, lie barren as the benches have been stolen from there. “School children keep playing cricket here, which damages most of the ad panels. The benches and dustbins are usually either vandalised due to people’s anger on the street or stolen by people who further go and sell them,” said a guard at the gate.
The foot overbridge adjacent to Hasanpur Depot was also a big boon to the area when it was made, solving the bane of crossing a road during peak traffic hours. However, the bridge is now in a dismal state. The roof above the bridge is broken and the escalators work in fits and starts. This has resulted in minimal usage of the structure in spite of its paramount need.
The problem is not only in this part of town. South Delhi’s foot overbridge near Sai Baba Mandir on lodhi Road is in a worse condition than most in the city. The elevators there don’t function and the panels covering the lift have also been broken revealing machinery. According to local shopkeepers who cart around the area, this has been the condition for the past year-and-a-half and no official from the PWD has even come by to see the sorry state of affairs.
Chief project engineer at PWD, Sarvagaya Srivastava, said, “It is wrong to say that these structures have not been taken care of or serviced. They wouldn’t have lasted this long otherwise. Every single structure that was built during CWG paid back its cost in two years. In fact, some had such great utility that they even paid back the cost in a year.”
However, commenting on the condition of these structures, Srivastava said vandalism is difficult to control. “Vandalism is ingrained in this city. We put up one dustbin and the next day, it is gone. A day after CWG, people were caught stealing flower pots from the stadium. People don’t spare anything, be it dustbin tops, ad panels, metal benches or even wires from elevators. There is not much we can do in such cases because replacing ad panels, street benches and fixing elevators every second day is not practical,” he informed.
A question about the utility of the structures built during CWG has also often been raised. Experts said climbing stairs is far more tedious than crossing a road. Similarly, people don’t like the idea of sitting under the sun on pavement benches, said a resident of Surajmal Vihar where YMC is situated.
Srivastava blamed people’s lack of civic sense. “When we were initially building the foot overbridges, we were criticised for slow work because several accidents while crossing the roads were reported. After the bridges were made, people didn’t want to use them. They’d rather risk their lives than climb stairs. likewise in the case of dustbins, people want to throw rubbish near the trashcan, never into it,” he said.