Walk on footpaths

Few days ago, new footpaths were laid in several parts of Basavanagudi area, Bangalore. They were built with good quality stone tiles of size 3 foot by 2 foot. Several roads looked quite pleasant with the new footpaths. However, what’s the use? Many seem to agree laying footpaths is a laudable work. How many of us really use them? Most of the time we walk on the road causing the vehicle users to honk, stop and exchange looks. Before the municipal corporation begins to do some infrastructure related activity, the people need to be educated. How many of us who otherwise would have protested for wanting them, are using them? Very few. Yesterday I walked along a road where the new footpath was laid. It is a busy street and being near to a school-college combo, there were lot of pedestrians. Only three to four people were walking on the footpath. If you question anybody walking on the road, they will come out with myriad reasons; while some of them are justified most of them are not.

The reasons what I think footpaths are unusable to some extent are like this. Most of the footpaths have become property of their respective homes. They use it for parking vehicles, dumping, etc. And thanks to the real estate boom every other house has some construction activity. Either they are building an extra floor to get that extra rent or remodel the current house so it can have one more bed room. So, you will see construction material of all sorts on the foot path. In commercial places footpaths have become extra storage space for the shop keepers. If they don’t have products to flaunt they sub-lease the foot path space to some street vendor.

We all should collectively work against such encroachments. Before that we should cultivate the habit of walking on the footpath instead of road, wherever applicable. Next time before we start criticizing the government’s failure to address public needs, we should learn how to use the existing utilities in the best interests of us.