BENGALURU: In the eight months between April and December 19, the BBMP reported that the city had 16,940 potholes and of them, 9,442 have been fixed.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) engineering department stated that many complaints were about the same potholes and were listed under the ‘rejected’ category.
The BBMP that had launched a mobile app, Rasthe Gundi Gamana (Pothole Attention), to report potholes across the city could source the data from both public as well as BBMP engineers.
“5,212 such pothole complaints were rejected as they were repeated and now the Palike is tasked with completing 1,974 potholes and the work on 615 such potholes or bad stretches has already begun. The Palike will complete the work,” said a senior engineer.
The BBMP spends approximately Rs 45 crore annually to fix potholes across eight zones covering 32,200 square metre of roads, he added.
Earlier, BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath had said that Rs 15 lakh is given per ward to fix potholes and repair roads.
In the first week of September, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah toured the city as complaints of bad roads and potholes were being reported daily. The BBMP chief briefed the CM that Rs 659.71 crore worth of asphalting of road measuring 1,611 km would be taken up in November and completed by March-end. Accordingly, the work is being taken up on many such roads.
“As it continued to rain even in December, the work of fixing potholes was delayed. For a quick fix and as a temporary solution, wet mix and ecofix technology is being used. Now that the rain has stopped, the road asphalting work will be hastened,” said an engineer.