Another deadline has passed, but the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has failed to fulfil its promise to make the city roads pothole-free.
BBMP Commissioner B.H. Anil Kumar told The Hindu on Sunday that there were still around 400 potholes in the city’s roads.
Mayor M. Gowtham Kumar said that though authorities were racing to meet the civic body’s self-imposed deadline to fill potholes across the city by Sunday, heavy rain on Saturday had affected the work.
The city’s roads were riddled with potholes following heavy rain that lashed a few weeks ago. With increasing complaints from citizens and the traffic police about poor road conditions, the BBMP Commissioner had announced that by November 10 all potholes in the city would be filled.
With the BBMP failing to meet its deadline, motorists continued to be a harried lot. Manoj C., a businessman who commutes on his bike from his home at R.R. Nagar to his factory at Kamakshipalaya, said, “The number of potholes have increased after the rain. I am extremely cautious while riding as one of my friends had a fall because of a pothole.”
Murthy S., an autorickshaw driver, said commute time had increased because of poor condition of roads.
According to information provided by the BBMP, between October 21 and 31, the civic body identified 6,520 potholes in the city. As on November 2, 2,871 potholes were filled. Mr. Anil Kumar had directed officials to expedite the pothole-filling work. Senior officials told The Hindu that from November 1 to 9, there were more than 1,649 entries on pothole filling. “Details of the potholes filled on major and other roads in different zones have been uploaded on the BBMP website for the public to verify,” an official said.
The official added that under each entry, there may be multiple potholes that have been filled on a particular stretch. Other details such as whether the road is under the defect-liability period, who the contractor is, road ID number, and before and after photos, along with the time have all been uploaded, the official said.
