While BlackBuck’s post has gained steam, residents and activists in the area have been demanding better road conditions for a long time.
Published Sep 25, 2025 | 11:45 AM ⚊ Updated Sep 25, 2025 | 11:45 AM
Residents protesting along Varthur Road against bad road conditions.
Synopsis: Residents of Bengaluru’s Bellandur and ORR areas have been demanding pothole-free roads for years, but their concerns went unheard. A recent social media post by a tech company CEO, however, prompted the government to act. Residents point out that while there has been some response, authorities have yet to initiate any long-term plans to address the issue.
A couple of kilometres away from the office complex of logistics company BlackBuck in Bellandur — on the Outer Ring Road (ORR) in Bengaluru — hundreds of vehicles are stranded on a two-lane road that is riddled with potholes.
Abhishek, an employee of tech-giant Intel, is right in the midst of the slow-moving traffic. He lives only four kilometres away from his office, but it takes him more than 40 minutes to commute on most days.
“This has been the reality for Bellandur residents for a long time now. Coming here is a pain,” he said. For years, complaints like his barely registered. However, one social media post changed that.
He was referring to an X post by BlackBuck CEO, who highlighted the transportation struggles faced by his employees, saying that it was time to move away from Bellandur. Soon, the government machinery woke up from its deep slumber and ordered the repair of roads.
“Nine years in Bellandur, but time to go,” BlackBuck said in a post on X on 16 September.
Pothole-ridden roads on the way to BlackBuck’s office in Bellandur.
In the post, which has over 1.4 million views, BlackBuck CEO and Co-founder Rajesh Yabaji mentioned how ORR has been their office and home for the last nine years.
He said, over time, it had become increasingly difficult to continue operating there, pointing out that employees spend up to 90 minutes commuting one way on pothole-ridden, dusty roads. Yabaji said he could not envision any improvement in the next five years.
Following the social post, the IT industry strongly expressed the pent-up frustration with the Congress government, urging it to immediately address the situation. Addressing the concerns, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah set a deadline of 31 October for contractors to fill all potholes in the city.
Since then, contractors and government officials have gone on a pothole-filling spree. Social media pages of Karnataka Congress and Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) have been filled with posts showing how officials are taking up work to clean up roads.
However, citizens in the area are not that hopeful. While BlackBuck’s post has gained steam, residents and activists in the area have been demanding better road conditions for a long time.
“It is a knee-jerk reaction to the IT company’s complaint. Why wasn’t the same urgency shown when citizens kept raising the issue for years? We need solutions that affect the deep-rooted issues in the area,” said Abhishek.
For those commuting into Bellandur via connecting roads, the journey has been a daily nightmare for several years, irrespective of which government is in power.
Residents protesting at Varthur Road against bad road conditions.
Ramnath Shenoy, a software professional, travels to Bellandur two to three times a week, via the Agara lake. For the past few weeks, the seasonal rain has created large craters in this area.
“Auto rickshaws get stuck, and two-wheelers struggle to find even a small stretch with no potholes. It is very risky with all the waterlogging, especially when it is raining,” Shenoy told South First.
The Agara flyover to Bellandur witnesses a traffic jam every day during peak hours. Most commuters on this flyover are heading towards Manyata Tech Park, Ecoworld, Google and other IT companies. “I had to get my own vehicle since finding cabs and autos in this area is challenging. Even with a two-wheeler, I often sit in standstill traffic in peak timings for at least 40 minutes,” said Geetha, an employee at Google.
While employees like her try to work from home to avoid the roads, company policies differ on how flexible remote work can be.
One such techie who travels to Cessna Business Park daily takes a road that connects Varthur to Kadubeesanhalli. He pulls up a video on his phone where an auto is trying to wade through a muddy stretch which has faced the onslaught of rain.
“I take this route every day, along with more than a thousand four-wheelers. But the condition of this road has stayed the same,” he said. When it rains, the stretch becomes dangerous for two-wheelers as they have to drive over slippery mud. Anyone can get injured,” he said.
In May 2025, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, along with officials from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) — now GBA — visited the same stretch to inspect rain-related damages.
“Officials come and go, but the problem stays the same,” said another resident in the area.
The risks go beyond office-goers. In the last two weeks alone, two school buses carrying students got stuck on the Balagere–Panathur stretch. On 12 September, a school bus carrying 20 children was almost toppled due to waterlogging and crater-ridden roads. On 19 September, another minivan carrying 20 children got stuck in a pothole in the area.
However, even several days after these near-mishaps, roads in this area still look the same — muddy and crater-filled.
“In the past few months, residents have been vocal, especially due to school buses getting into accidents. Exams are going on, and children are getting late to school due to heavy traffic and bad roads,” Valli Srinivasan, from Bellandur Development Forum (BDF), a community-driven group, told South First.
Although groups like BDF have been organising protests and raising complaints against road conditions in the area, Srinivisan said that the response from civic authorities has been lukewarm. “The government responds better to influential or well-known entities. This has caused political disenchantment among residents who feel neglected,” she said.
On 20 September, hundreds of residents in and around Varthur staged a protest against deteriorating road conditions and worsening traffic on the Varthur-Gunjur stretch. Locals complained that daily commuters are forced to spend 40 minutes on a two-km stretch between Vinayak Nagara and Varthur Police Station — a route that should ideally take less than five minutes.
Protestors also referred to a recent case wherein an ambulance was stuck on the same pothole-ridden stretch for over 20 minutes.
The techie who works at Cessna Business Park told South First that the GBA took up pothole-filling works post their protest. In a post on X, GBA said, “Bad reaches filled on Panathur Road, Bengaluru east city corporation. Ensuring smoother and safer travel for commuters.”
However, under the post, several residents asked how long this “temporary fix” would last.
Tell us how long it will survive?
— Just another guy 😅 (@sbhansali) September 21, 2025
While it seems as if BlackBuck’s exit and years of citizen agitation have jolted the state government into action, urban experts are cautious of writing off the problem of potholes in the city just yet.
Slow-moving traffic in front of BlackBuck’s office in Bellandur.
“Putting tar on old potholes doesn’t fix the problem. It elevates the height of the road, and it ends up becoming the same height as the pavement. Vehicles then start driving on the footpath,” said Ashwin Mahesh, an urban expert and scientist.
He stressed the need for advanced equipment that can strip away old tar before repairs. “What about areas that do not have roads at all? These areas are not being looked at since the current exercise is only focusing on fixing small patches of roads,” Mahesh said.
Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar recently claimed that about 200 potholes are being filled daily in each of the five corporations. However, experts say the government should avoid putting a number on potholes. “The question we should be asking is why there were 200 potholes in the first place,” Mahesh said.
Additionally, the expert also called for scaling up the fleet of buses in the city to reduce the pressure on roads once they are fixed. “Each bus can remove 20-30 vehicles from the road. Ultimately, the goal is smoother mobility, not just smoother roads. That means long-term planning instead of quick fixes,” he said.
Mahesh also expressed hope that the division of the city into five corporations will help citizens reach out to their area’s officials with grievances. “Now, residents from different neighbourhoods within a corporation can directly voice their concerns, instead of approaching a single body for the entire city. Since this model is new for the city, expectations are higher. The government’s response must be better and match those expectations,” he said.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
