BENGALURU: Urban and civic experts said that civic agencies such as Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) should junk the age-old practice of taking up civic works and road-digging during monsoon.
Kathyayini Chamaraj, Executive Trustee, CIVIC Bengaluru, an NGO, said the Greater Bengaluru Authority has taken over the city planning and it must take up one work at a time and complete, instead of working on multiple projects and causing unnecessary delay. This apart, the civic agencies must take up work before monsoon.
“The projects should be taken up by February and completed by May. Taking up work during the monsoon will cause double inconvenience to the public. The budget is prepared in February and works are taken up in June, instead, take up the work in January or February,” said Chamaraj.
Urban expert Ashwin Mahesh pitched for a timetable. He suggested taking up major road works as soon as the north east monsoon ends.
“Such works should be taken up in December or January and the pothole fixing and annual maintenance can be taken up from June onwards,” he said. He added that a calendar of works should be planned by keeping weather conditions in mind.
Ashwin also stated that instead of generally accusing BBMP or BWSSB for such delayed works, a person concerned or head has to be identified and fix accountability.
R Rajagopalan from Bengaluru Coalition pointed out the proxy factor in such works and said that the contractors mostly are either relatives, friends and benami persons.
“Some contractors are there for a long time and they simply drag as they will have too many to handle. Besides as payment gets delayed for two years, some of them ensure road or infrastructure projects also are delayed till such time,” he said.
He also pointed out technical hurdles especially for BWSSB as gradients, and massive pipelines are found sometimes while doing earthworks and it may take time for alignment.
The BWSSB is also at fault for sinkholes as they do not add wet mix immediately after the earthwork is over. “They wait for soil to settle down and then add the wet mix. The road then should be either black or white topped. Adding aggregators after two or four months may result in runoff of the wet mix along with soil due to rains and when tarred or concreted in such patches, there are chances of sinkholes,” he said.