Court cases hold up 60 mts work on Irwin Road

• Two property owners approach High Court against demolition move
• We are ready to complete road widening work but our hands are tied: MCC

Mysore/Mysuru: Only two properties extending up to 60 metres have to be demolished to realise the full benefits of a widened and a beautified Irwin Road. The Mysuru City Corporation has not gone ahead with the demolition as the building owners have approached the Karnataka High Court.

Only a portion of the stretch — from Railway Station to Ayurveda College Circle — has been widened and the 850-metre stretch of the road from Ayurveda College Circle to Arch Gate on B.N. Road is pending. Of the pending works, 60-metre drain has to be constructed and 70 metres have to be asphalted.

Though over 70 percent of the demolition and widening of the road has been completed between the Arch Gate till the City Railway Station (Babu Jagjivan Ram Circle), the 450-metre stretch from Government Ayurveda College Circle till Nehru Circle (Lashkar Police Station) is the bone of contention.  

Among the contentious properties is the Jumma Masjid which was built by Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar in 1927 and now owned and managed by Wakf Board and a private building owned by an advocate. Both of them have approached the High Court against the demolition.

Earlier, the entire stretch from the Arch Gate till the Railway Station was only 28-ft wide and now the stretch (except for 60 metres where demolition is pending) has a width of 60-ft (18 metres) including footpath.

Speaking to Star of Mysore, MCC Zone 6 Development Officer Manjunath, who is also the in-charge Assistant Commissioner for the Zone said that the MCC’s hands were tied due to the legal tangle.

“Works are almost complete and we are ready to complete the project. We have spared no efforts to convince the property owners but they are not relenting. The MCC has already paid a compensation of Rs. 3.5 crore to the Wakf Board but still they have approached the High Court,” he said.

There were 84 properties on the road and the demolition of two properties is pending. “Rs. 38 crore was set aside as compensation and Rs. 27 crore has been paid already. Rs. 3 crore has been reserved for the building owned by the advocate and Rs. 2 crore will be paid to the management of Panchamukhi Anjaneyaswamy Temple and Rs. 3 crore will be paid to the Central Library. The properties owned by the Temple and the  Library have already been demolished and only the payment has to be made to them,” he explained.

Irwin Road is one of the busiest roads in city that connects the suburban bus stand to Railway Station. But it is also choked with vehicles, given the dense commercial growth along the stretch, thus making road expansion difficult. Now with only  60 metres of the works pending, it has become a bottleneck for vehicles.