Chief Minister Siddaramaiah came face-to-face with problems in the State capital, beginning with potholes, bumpy roads, delay in Namma Metro work and unfinished flyovers.
Coming more than three and a half months after he took over the reins of the State administration, his first city round on Saturday stumped the Chief Minister, who later admitted that the infrastructural woes would dent Bangalore’s image as the IT and Knowledge Capital.
Crisscrossing the city in an air-conditioned bus, the Chief Minister reviewed projects at ten stops, along with civic heads and other officials who accompanied him in more than two dozen vehicles. Irked at the delay in project completion, Mr. Siddaramaiah snapped at officials who were trying to come up with excuses. “You should invoke the penalty clause if the contractor does not adhere to deadlines,” a visibly agitated Mr. Siddaramaiah told BBMP officials when an engineer blamed the contractor for delay in completion of CNR Rao underpass in Malleswaram.
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Spending around 20 minutes at each project site, he interacted with officials, engineers and public to get a better understanding of the problems. His city tour had to be cut short, an official said, adding that a number of other sites had to be dropped from the itinerary. On seeing haphazardly filled potholes on Park House Road, he burst into anger and asked BBMP Commissioner M. Lakshminarayana why they were not being filled up scientifically.