TenderSURE road as a concept was sold to the city on the promise that all utilities would be shifted under the pavement, making repeated digging of roads a thing of the past. The goal was to ensure smooth vehicular flow.
However, a stretch of Richmond Road (General K.S. Thimayya Road), being developed under the project, near Hosmat circle, has six manholes in the middle of the carriageway. Most of the manholes were being refurbished on Friday, disrupting traffic flow.
Unlike other roads that are under TenderSURE, the sewer lines on this stretch have not been replaced or shifted under the pavement, defeating the project’s goal.
Vinay Sreenivasa of the environment support group Hasiru Usiru, which had opposed TenderSURE project, said this selective shifting of sewer lines under the pavements on some roads, while retaining them under the carriageway in others, was unscientific. “If the roads are still going to be dug up, what is the reason for TenderSURE work?” he sought to know.
Ganesh Kamath, manager, NAPC India, the contractor of the project, said as a special case, sewer line was left undisturbed on this stretch of the road as the line was a sub-main where multiple sewer lines congregate. “The sub-main starts from Hayes Road and moves towards Lower Agaram through this road. If replaced, the entire sub-main has to be replaced,” he said.
Nitya Ramesh of Jana Urban Space, the designers of TenderSURE roads, said the particular sub-main was re-laid only a few years ago unlike sewer lines elsewhere which almost date back to the colonial times. This led to the decision not to replace the sewer line.
However, this is not the only TenderSURE road with manholes on the carriageway. Even St. Mark’s Road has a manhole on the carriageway, near Cash Pharmacy, which civic officials blamed on the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). Meanwhile, other stretches of Richmond Road, too, have manholes on the carriageway, which NAPC officials said would be closed after all properties in the area take the new sewer connections.
On Richmond Road, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and BWSSB officials argued that the road was unlikely to be dug up frequently, as it is the sub-main with a large diameter pipeline.
