BENGALURU: Bengaluru Ditched, the two-week-long campaign by TNIE in these columns has finally jolted Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) into reading the riot act to civic agencies such as Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM).
The BBMP has now decided that the road restoration work will be carried out only by its team. The BBMP would also demand the agencies which want to carry out various civic/development works to deposit money in advance to carry out restoration work.
Chief Engineer, BBMP Projects Department, M Lokesh said that it will ensure road restoration work as sinking of roads and bad patches resurface following repair works by other civic agencies.
“The roads fixed by such agencies get spoiled and the BBMP gets a bad name, hence, before giving a ‘No Objection Certificate’ from BBMP, the municipality has put a condition to collect deposit money as, palike only will fix the roads,” said Lokesh.
A senior BWSSB official said it is carrying out works like replacing old sewer lines in core Bengaluru and laying the Cauvery drinking water pipeline and providing sewage lines in the 110 villages that were merged with BBMP in 2008. “We dig roads and after installation of pipes, we are closing but we are no experts like BBMP in fixing the roads by following the protocol, hence there are undulations, bad patches and sinkholes,” said a BWSSB engineer.
D Prasad, Member, Indian Road Congress and road infrastructure expert said, the reason why roads across city have become pathetic is because of lack of coordination failure of appointment of a ‘coordinator’ who will oversee the digging and fixing operation of roads.
“There are no boards or cautions and no one knows who to contact to fix the bad road stretch or the dug-up area. Once the road digging and civic work is complete, the protocol like using stone powder and soil layer-wise and watering the area and again adding the same and finally adding wet mix before taking up whitetopping or black topping is absent and this has led to sinking of roads across the city,” said Prasad. He added that taking up road digging work during monsoon is a bad practice and the civic agencies only take up development work during monsoon. As a result, the work gets delayed and public money is wasted.