BENGALURU: The pothole-ridden Bengaluru-Mysuru Road near NICE Junction was fixed within 24 hours of The New Indian Express tweeting a video of the traffic meandering through the potholes on the road that resembled the lunar surface with meteorites-hit pockmarks.
But the corrective action came with the BBMP clarifying that the road was being fixed by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) which took up construction work since 2017. After TNIE’s Tuesday afternoon video of the bad stretch went viral on social media, scoring well over 3 lakh views and comments, a revisit to the stretch on Wednesday afternoon showed JCBs and rollers at work mending the road and filling up potholes.
The video was shot by TNIE photojournalist Shriram BN, and posted at 1.34 PM on Tuesday with the caption ‘Potholes on the road? Or a road in between potholes ? Welcome to the IT capital of India. Bengaluru -Mysuru road near Nice road junction with multiple potholes making motorists difficult to use the stretch in #Bengaluru’.’
The video soon went viral and kicked off a ‘meme fest’ on social media. Angry citizens roasted the BBMP for letting them down on every occasion. As the video clocked over 2 lakh views, many media houses followed it up which eventually forced the municipality to act immediately. The 23 seconds video shows how motorists are left inconvenienced and travelling on the stretch limbs and vehicles due to the apathy of the authorities. While the HC pulled up the BBMP a number of times for the civic mess, it keeps coming up with deadlines after deadlines in terms of filling up ‘craters’.
However, on Wednesday late evening, Prahalad, Chief Engineer (Road Infrastructure), BBMP, addressed the media, saying they had inspected the stretch on May 15, and the BBMP had taken over the stretch between Nayandahalli and Jnanabharathi for development works, which are under way. The BBMP, he said, had informed the National Highways Authority of India about its roadside storm water drain works, among others. The road falls under the NHAI jurisdiction and is now being fixed by BMRCL as Metro works are on there, Prahalad added.