A day after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah issued a fortnight’s deadline to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to rid Bengaluru’s roads of potholes, Mayor R. Sampath Raj said major roads were being repaired to meet the deadline.
The Mayor, who started zone-wise review of pothole-repair works, said 564 of 833 potholes in the west zone had been filled, and the remaining would be filled on Wednesday. In the east zone, 5,494 potholes had been identified of which 2,162 were yet to be filled, said Mr. Raj, adding that these numbers were only for the major roads.
“Bommanahalli is the worst affected, with around 10,000 potholes. But around 6,900 have been covered. The recent rains may have added another 3,000. We are taking up repair works everywhere, including on Mysuru Road,” he said.
Technology-based flood mapping to be studied
Motorists continued to struggle on the city’s pothole-ridden roads on Tuesday, even as the BBMP said work was in progress to make the ride for the over 70 lakh vehicles smoother. The Mayor is expected to review repair works in four zones on Wednesday.
However, on ground, there was little relief. The BBMP met with representatives of a private company that is offering a GIS-based system that will help give out ward-level warnings on likely floods.
“There is a New Delhi-based company that has come forward with a solution. They have already being doing it for government agencies and in cities such as Kolkata and Chennai. The solution identifies where flooding can take place. Through this, ward engineers can be intimated about the rise in water levels which can then help them evacuate people in case of flooding,” said Mayor R. Sampath Raj. He added that the palike was studying the proposal and would forward it to the government.
However, citizens are questioning why the BBMP is not tackling the cause of the flooding instead. “We know flooding happens because of clogged drains that have garbage dumped into them, or because there is no proper drainage system in some areas. So, what is the course of action if they manage to locate where flooding happens? There are free applications that make such predictions, and even we, the citizens, can tell you where it will flood and why,” Seema Sharma, a resident of Bellandur, said.
Citizens vent online
With several roads getting waterlogged again during Monday’s rain, the Bengaluru Traffic Police’s (BTP) social media page was busy putting out updates of slow traffic movement on Tuesday, such as this one: “Traffic is very slow on ORR from Marathahalli to Bellandur due to large number of potholes at Devarabisanahalli Service Road” and “Commuters please take care while driving at Shivaji Junction towards Poornima Junction due to potholes.”
Citizens took the opportunity to vent their frustration with the poor state of the roads on the BTP’s posts. “Please tag BBMP so they will know where these potholes are,” said one. “Good you have informed BBMP... Otherwise, is it not their responsibility to do field visits and fix such issues?? How can we make them accountable for such incidents??” asked another citizen.
Some took the funny route: “I’m sure if we dig a little deeper we could find oil! That should give BBMP enough money to repair all the roads in Bangalore!”
