Though it is a pilot project, the “rapid road” on Old Madras Road in Bengaluru has developed cracks within a month of its inauguration by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has not yet finalised the rapid road project and is still in the evaluation process. On December 8, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had inaugurated the pilot rapid road stretch and had said that the Karnataka government would consider construction of rapid roads by using pre-cast technology only after examining its quality and cost.
For the last few days, the cracks have been noticed by motorists using the stretch. Arvind Krishnan, a resident of Indiranagar 1st stage, said, “The civic body had claimed that the road will be of good quality and will last for years compared to other roads. But from day one, the road seemed to be of poor quality and now one can see that it has developed cracks, which will be dangerous for motorists.”
Stretch inaugurated after several delays
In the ‘rapid road’ method, pre-cast slabs are prepared, joined, strengthened and then laid. As an experiment, a 375-metre-long stretch was laid on the busy Old Madras Road (OMR).
The OMR ‘rapid road’ stretch was opened for traffic after missing several deadlines. The repair work was announced on November 23. The pilot project was supposed to be completed in three days, but took 13 days. The road sees a large volume of traffic every day, including inter-State transport vehicles.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has not yet finalised the rapid road project and is still in the evaluation process. | Photo Credit: Sudhakara Jain
S. Chandrasekhar, a motorist said, “The BBMP should have done a detailed study before wasting money on such a project. Though it is a pilot, the BBMP could have consulted various road experts and then constructed the road.” Earlier, officials had said that while the white-topping roads take around 30 days, the rapid roads would take two to three days.
Since it is a new technology, a BBMP official said they were still in the process of evaluating and checking how the cracks had developed. “The investigation is going on. We have asked for an evaluation report by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc),” official said.
Earlier, BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath had confirmed that the rapid road is the fastest constructed road. “However, we have to look into all the technical aspects and see whether it is cost-effective before proceeding to construct such roads in other parts of the city. The cost of this project is high compared to the white-topping road project by at least 20% to 25% since this project requires an additional cost of transporting the concrete slabs to the site from the factory,” Mr. Giri Nath had said.
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