For motorists, commuting within the city is akin to completing an obstacle course. For pedestrians, the state of roads and lack of pavements is a health hazard. Inundated with complaints from citizens, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has decided to constitute a zonal-level task force to oversee filling up of potholes and repairing bad reaches on high-density corridors, arterial and sub-arterial and ward roads.
Civic officials said that each ward has an allocation of ₹20 lakh only for filling up the potholes.
The task forces will be overseen by the chief engineer, executive engineers, assistant executive engineers and ward engineers. A note in this regard was issued to all engineers by chief commissioner Gaurav Gupta on Thursday.
Motorists and pedestrians are sceptical, but hope that the task forces will be effective in tackling the problem. Apart from several roads dug up for development works that are in different stages of completion, there now are numerous unmotorable stretches across the city, as a result of the heavy rains over the past few days.
According to the internal note, a copy of which is with The Hindu, the zonal task forces once constituted should first make a list of all roads and potholes, and place an indent for hot mix to fill the potholes from the hot mix plant.
Taking note of the lack of coordination between the different departments even within the BBMP, such as road infrastructure and projects, the task force is expected to bridge the gap between them.
Engineers from road infrastructure and projects departments have already identified roads that are still under defect liability period and submitted the reports. Repair of bad reaches and filling potholes on these roads will be the responsibility of the contractor concerned. The note added that the hot mix plant should supply the asphalt hot mix to all zones and send the details of the quantum demanded and supplied to the zonal officials.
The zonal chief engineer should oversee the filling up of all potholes in the zones and submit a report on the same to the zonal commissioner on a daily basis. The daily reports from the eight different zones should be collated and submitted to the office of the Administrator and Chief Commissioner every day.
Repair work in 110 villages to be completed in four months
The BBMP is set to also take up repairs of roads in the outer zones, especially the 110 villages, that have been dug up by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) to lay pipelines for drinking water and underground drainage. This work is likely to be completed in four months.
According to civic officials, roads in Bommanahalli, Mahandevapura, Yelahanka and Rajarajeshwarinagar were particularly bad after they were dug up by the water board. The State government had also sanctioned ₹1,000 crore to the BBMP to take up road repairs in the 110 villages.
A detailed project report had been prepared and tender for road repairs would be floated in packages not exceeding ₹10 crore. Tenders will either be at the sub-division, ward, Assembly constituency or zonal levels. “Once the rains abate, the work can be taken up,” said a senior civic official.
