Another deadline has whizzed past and yet, more than a third of potholes in the city are yet to be filled.
Several roads, including arterial and sub-arterial ones, are riddled with potholes, making commuting a herculean task for citizens.
Around two weeks ago, city in-charge and Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy announced that of the 33,000-odd potholes identified in the city, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had filled around 20,000. The remaining 13,000 would be filled in 10 days’ time, he had said.
New potholes
Curiously, these figures seem to be similar to the latest figures available with the BBMP. As on July 8, the BBMP filled 20,509 potholes and 13,239 were yet to be filled.
BBMP Commissioner M. Lakshminarayan professed an explanation. He said that new potholes were emerging every day. With rains, the city’s roads developed more potholes. “Even as one pothole is filled, two or three more come up. Pothole filling is a continuous process,” he explained.
Pointing out that the arterial and sub-arterial roads had not been asphalted, he said that over the past few years, only patch work had been taken up. “We are now planning to asphalt the arterial and sub-arterial roads. As per our estimates, this will cost the BBMP around Rs. 300 crore.
Tenders will be floated soon,” he added.
Zonal monitoring
BBMP’s Engineer-in-Chief D. Rangaraju said that the zonal chief engineers were monitoring the pothole filling in their respective zones. “We are getting from them a consolidated report on the progress of pothole filling on a weekly basis.”
He said that the BBMP had released Rs. 5 lakh to each of the 198 wards for pothole-filling. While tenders have been floated by a few zones to fill potholes, the exercise has been largely entrusted to the Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Ltd. (KRIDL), a government agency.
