BENGALURU: Even after directions from Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai himself that the city roads should be rid of potholes, engineers of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) are yet to get into the act. There is still no consolidated data on the number of potholes in the city on any single platform. The information is also not in the public domain for people to assess and verify.
The engineers chorus that they have decided to do away with the system of counting potholes. Instead, they measure the length of roads which need to be repaired. The BBMP has divided bad roads into two categories — potholed and bad reaches (ones which are cut open by civic agencies like BWSSB, BESCOM, etc for publicutility works but not asphalted again).
They are also divided over the repair of roads — major roads and city roads divisions — on consolidating and verifying the road works and maintaining records. According to the BBMP major roads division, from September 2021 till January 11, 2022, 3.88 lakh sqmt of bad roads have been improved in the city of which 1,05,098 sqmts are listed as bad reaches and 683 sqmt listed as potholed stretches.
The officials say that 15 km is pending in the potholed stretch category and 2,38,521 sqmts is pending under the bad stretches category. However, there is still no consolidated data of the potholed stretches and bad roads in the interior parts of the city. The engineers state that it is the duty of each zone to manage and maintain the roads and hence, the head office does not have any consolidated data.
“We have stopped counting potholes as it’s a dynamic figure. We list out bad stretches. We have data of the bad stretches, but it is yet to be put on public domain. The BBMP is working on adhering to the CM’s deadline to improve city roads,” BBMP Chief Engineer B S Prahalad said. Given the situation, experts, citizens and even senior officials in the Urban Development Department have expressed concer n over deadl ines being met.
“The CM is talking of bringing in transparency, but it does not seem to be possible when there is no information in one place about the number of potholes or even bad stretches and repaired ones,” said an official from UDD.