BENGALURU: Despite civic agencies spending crores of rupees on Bengaluru’s infrastructure, sinkholes and potholes are common. While substandard work is to blame, ultimately it is the common citizens who, in several instances, lose their precious lives.
Experts and urban planners, however, say the lack of sub-surface mapping and ‘infra culture’ has led to the city’s infrastructure going haywire when it comes to road infrastructure.
Urban planner and architect Naresh Narasimhan said the reason behind potholes and sinkholes in Bengaluru is a lack of “sub-surface mapping”.
“We don’t need just infrastructure, we need ‘infra culture’ and a drawing that is a sub-surface of road mapping even before taking up road works. We are taking a superficial approach and our road designs are very obsolete. As a result, there is leakage of water from drains and stagnation on roads which leads to potholes and sinkholes,” said Narasimhan.
Geo environmentalist at Bengaluru University Dr D Paramesha Naik stated that though less common than potholes, sinkholes pose a more severe threat. He observed that factors like karst topography (formed by soluble bedrock and debris) in certain areas, excessive groundwater extraction and construction practices have led to cavities on roads.
According to Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) Fix My Street app, the city has 3,598 potholes. From April to December 16, 5,515 potholes were reported, of which 959 have been fixed and 958 complaints were rejected as these were not related to potholes.
BBMP, which is the custodian of city roads, has attributed the potholes and bad stretches to construction activity due to the real estate boom, widespread digging by agencies like Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom), optical fibre cable service providers and others.
Road network:
Roads in Palike limits are maintained by the engineering department of BBMP, and are classified into three groups -- ‘arterial roads’, ‘sub-arterial roads’ and ward roads.
According to BS Prahalad, Engineer-In-Chief, BBMP, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike consists of 470 arterial/ sub-arterial roads, accounting for 1344.84km. Similarly, ward roads account for 12,528.98km. “Roads constructed or re-asphalted in the past three years are monitored within the Defect Liability Period (DLP) with the help of Road History registers, and in case there is damage like potholes and sinkholes, the contractors concerned will be asked to fix it,” said Prahalad.
Agreeing with BBMP on potholes and sinkholes appearing in Bengaluru due to other civic agencies’ work, BWSSB engineer-in-chief B Suresh said that at present, Cauvery stage V work is on and the board is tasked to complete the sewage network and water supply to 110 villages that were merged with BBMP wards. “We take permission from BBMP and do our work and try to restore the road to its original form, or pay the amount to BBMP itself to fix the road,” said Suresh. A BWSSB official said an action plan for the restoration of BWSSB road cut portions in 110 village limits of BBMP has been approved by the Karnataka government for Rs 100 crore.
Expressing the same, a senior Bescom official said the agency keeps receiving complaints of underground cable fault due to damage by other agencies, and hence takes up repair work and cuts the roads. “We take permission and once we fix the cable fault and damage, we cover the dug up area and add aggregates. We operate with our civil works team and restore BBMP roads,” said the senior Bescom official.
To address the issue of potholes and sinkholes, BBMP has established its hot mix plants to supply asphalt mix to fill potholes at Kannur village for a continuous supply of hot asphalt mix for filling up potholes. This plant ensures the quality of the asphalt batch mix and its timely supply. Now BBMP has roped in four more contractors having bitumen hot mix plants to overcome the delay in filling up potholes. Work orders have already been issued and work is in progress, say Palike officials.
BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath in February stated that the civic body has spent Rs 119 crore between 2020 and 2022 for filling up potholes, and the Palike filled over 29,000 potholes that time. The Palike has now approved Rs 2.19 lakhs per kilometre for annual maintenance of roads only to address pothole issues.
Fatal consequences
With people dying while avoiding potholes and bad stretches, opposition parties have lashed out at the ruling government and BBMP. In 2022, six deaths were linked to potholes, following which a PIL was filed and BBMP officials were pulled up by the court over bad roads.
Recently, Aam Aadmi Party members held a protest near the sinkhole site in Ulsoor and demanded that the project executed by BBMP should be examined by IISc or any third party to check its quality. The members also stated that a Lokayukta complaint for Rs 15 crore will be filed is spent per kilometre on white-topping of roads.
Following incidents of potholes and sinkhole deaths and criticism, BBMP has also set up a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) wherein Detailed Project Reports (for work costing more than Rs 10cr) are placed before the committee for technical suggestions and guidance.
BBMP also engages third-party quality monitors for work less than Rs 1 crore. A detailed mechanism is worked out to ensure that responsibilities are given to assistant engineers and their names are included in the format. One engineer is designated to each ward who will survey the roads for potholes using the ‘Fix My Street’ application.