Bengaluru: Will there be an end to the menace of roads dug up for laying cables or underground pipes being left unrepaired?
It looks like there may be some succour for citizens. Minister for Bengaluru Development K.J. George on Saturday announced that a Road Cutting and Restoration Agency (RCRA) would be started to streamline the process of road digging by various agencies. All such work would need to go through the RCRA, which will have empanelled contractors authorised to take up the same.
“Henceforth, the civic agency applying for road digging will need to remit the fee for digging and asphalting to the empanelled RCRA, which will undertake the digging and repair of the road,” said BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad.
This would apply to works taken up through civic agencies, including the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board and the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom), as well as private telecom companies.
“The agency which needs to dig the road will have to pay the fee in advance to the BBMP, which will get the road dug and restored,” he said, adding that applications for empanelled contractors would be invited in a few days.
Various agencies dig up roads for laying cables and pipes but do not repair them on time, said Mr. George, who inspected Sankey Road, Mehkri Circle and the Railway Parallel Road in Kumara Park West on Saturday. He pulled up officials for not overseeing repairs on these stretches.
“The government has decided to put a check on this. Henceforth, all civic authorities should obtain permission from the BBMP and work should be taken up through an authorised agency,” said Mr. George.
The lack of coordination between civic agencies and the BBMP has been a constant irritant for residents. Sometimes freshly laid roads are dug up within hours of asphalting. Although a coordination committee had been set up in 2015, it was not very effective. The BBMP has been complaining that it repairs roads only to see them dug up by other agencies.
Nitya Ramakrishnan of Whitefield Rising said that irrespective of the agency taking up the work, the common man is dealing with one common government body. "Such arrangements have been put in place even earlier, but without acceptable results. If this one is effective, it will be a good thing," she said.
In March 2016, residents of Whitefield prevented a contractor from digging up a road connecting Rainbow Children's Hospital to Graphite India junction, which had been repaired after several years. The contractor arrived barely hours after the road had been repaired.
