Questioning why the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) commenced work of constructing a 2.5 km-long flyover between Ejipura main road and Kendriya Sadan in Koramangala without addressing various issues, the High Court of Karnataka on Monday criticised the civic body for being unable to specify even the outer limit for completion of the flyover.
Observing that flyover has not been completed even though huge amount of public money has already spent on construction, the court directed the BBMP Commissioner to submit a detailed plan along with time-bound deadline to complete the flyover.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Suraj Govindaraj issued the direction while hearing a PIL petition filed in July 2021 by Adinarayan Shetty, a resident of Koramangala 5th Block, complaining about the hardship caused because of the incomplete flyover.
The Bench noted that the BBMP counsel even now is unable to tell the court the outer limit for completing the flyover even though the court way back on July 29, 2021 had set August 30, 2021 as the deadline for the BBMP to file its statements indicating the outer limit to complete the flyover project.
As BBMP counsel pointed out various problems, including issue of legality over cutting of trees etc., which have delayed execution of project, the Bench questioned why the BBMP commenced the project without sorting out all the issues.
The tender was floated for construction of the flyover in 2014 and the contract was awarded and work order was issued in favour of M/s Simplex Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. in May 2017 for construction at a cost of ₹203 crore.
The construction was supposed to be completed by November 2019 as 30 months were given for completion from the date of issuance of work order, the petitioner had said while pointing out that the work had not progressed even after BBMP granted additional time till December 2020 by imposing penalty on the company.
