The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Tuesday told the Karnataka High Court that it has taken steps to repair the roads by filling potholes as per the Indian Roads Congress Standard and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways specifications by adopting machinery in about 1,940 km of arterial and sub-arterial roads in the city.
In his written statement, BBMP Commissioner M. Lakshminarayan said that various other factors, including digging of roads by various civic agencies and heavy rain, were responsible for deterioration of roads. The roads were being improved in a phased manner.
The statement was filed during a hearing of a contempt of court petition, which alleged that the BBMP had failed to implement the 12 recommendations made by a court-appointed expert committee, within six months as directed a Division Bench in February 2012. It has been complained that non-implementation of committee’s recommendations on maintenance of quality roads has resulted in potholes.
However, the BBMP stated that it had implemented 98 of the total 112 recommendations and it required about six more months to implement the remaining recommendations.
A Division Bench comprising Justice K.L Manjunath and Justice A.V. Chandrashekara, before whom the contempt petition came up for hearing, adjourned further hearing.
The court, based on a public interest litigation petition, in 2005 had constituted a committee headed by Capt (Retd) Raja Rao, a retired chief engineer of Water Resources Department. The Committee, after inspection and study, submitted five reports on bimonthly basis.
The BBMP had agreed before the court to implement only 107 of the 112 recommendations. The High Court in February 2012 disposed of the PIL giving six months time to implement other recommendations as the BBMP had then stated that it had already implemented 95 recommendations.
