BENGALURU: Following complaints about potholes flooding the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Chief Minister Siddaramaiah toured the city on Thursday and checked the progress of the work under way to fix potholes.
Speaking to the media after the inspection, Siddaramaiah noted that the road surface is crumbling, owing to the laying of BESCOM cables, water supply and sewerage pipes, GAIL gas pipes, and large high-capacity KPTCL and OFC cables.
Meanwhile, asphalting work over 1,611 km of road will be taken up from November, to be completed by March-end. This will be done at a cost of Rs 659.71 crore
Palike officials briefed the CM about the city’s roads. They informed that Bengaluru has a road network of about 12,878 km, of which about 1,344.84 km belong to the arterial and sub-arterial road group, and the remaining of about 11,533.16 km, to the Zonal road group.
“A BBMP batch mix unit has been set up for speedy repair of potholes, and potholes appearing on arterial and sub-arterial roads are being covered by this batch mix unit. Similarly, the roads at the Zonal level have been divided into wards and a grant of Rs 15 lakh has been released to each ward for maintenance,” Siddaramaiah said.
The process of pothole closure is in place and measures are being taken to cover potholes as soon as they appear. The potholes emerging due to road-digging activities by agencies such as BESCOM, KPTCL, and GAIL, have been ordered to be closed by the respective organisations themselves, he added.