Constant complaints from motorists about Bengaluru’s roads becoming unmotorable, more so after the recent rains, now have backing from the city’s civic body. A marathon meeting with all its zonal officers and engineers by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Tuesday revealed that the city’s roads had an astounding 15,935 potholes.
The BBMP, which had cited rains as the reason for not undertaking repair works, is now promising to address the problem immediately now that the monsoon season is officially over. Mayor R. Sampath Raj said officials have been given 15 days to fill all the potholes in the city.
“In fact, on Tuesday night, we will be undertaking work on the Mysuru Road flyover and Hebbal flyover. We have readied 25 bitumen plants and will also be deploying pythons (pothole-filling machines) to complete the work. We will undertake work during the daytime where vehicular flow is not too high and during the nights where traffic is high,” he said, adding that care will be taken to carry out quality checks and inspections to ensure the work is of good quality. The Palike’s intervention comes at a time when road quality is also being blamed for slowing traffic movement, apart from causing accidents. According to the Bengaluru Traffic Police, on an average, the city witnesses around 10 accidents each day, at least two of them fatal, and caused by factors that include poor road conditions.
“We can now count the number of roads where there are no potholes. Barring some roads which have been white-topped newly and some TenderSURE roads, almost every road has potholes now. Even on Cunningham Road — which is a TenderSURE road — water is flowing on the road,” R. Hithendra, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), has said.
Meanwhile, traffic expert M.N. Srihari said every road was the responsibility of the BBMP.
“The BBMP should be responsible for every accident that occurs as it is the owner of the road. There is technology available and Indian engineers are second to none. But their advice is not being taken. That is because if you build a road that lasts 100 years, how will they generate bills for maintenance and operations?” he asked.
However, the BBMP said repair works have been taken up. “For example, the Mysuru Road stretch between Nayandahalli and Rajarajeshwarinagar arch had been handed over to Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. for maintenance. But when we noticed that the road was in a bad condition, both metro and our officials repaired it,” said BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad.
