₹20 crore spent on Bengaluru road works in last 5 years: Karnataka CM Bommai
Bommai, who is also the minister in-charge of Bengaluru portfolio, made the revelation while responding to query in the ongoing monsoon session of the Upper House of the state legislature
Bengaluru Chief minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday revealed that the Karnataka government, in the last five years, has spend ₹20,060 crore in various road works in Bengaluru.
Bommai, who is also the minister in-charge of Bengaluru portfolio, made the revelation while responding to query in the ongoing monsoon session of the Upper House of the state legislature.
“I agree that the roads in Bengaluru are discussed no matter which government is in power. We elected representatives get a lot of criticism,” Bommai said.
In his response, the chief minister acknowledged that out of the 11,285.05 kms of roads in the city, just 1,344.34 kms are motorable, admitting to the one of the biggest infrastructural challenges gnawing at India’s IT capital for perpetuity.
Bommai said that he would conduct a road maintenance audit to monitor and check the money spent on roads (arterial and sub-arterial), estimates when it started and final cost, maintenance history, potholes and would seek responses from contractors, officials and every person involved in the works to keep a watch on the amount spent on these projects.
“I will fix the responsibility on officers,” Bommai added
PR Ramesh, the Congress MLC who sought the responses on road infrastructure from the government, on Thursday said that the officials and others involved were “looting public money”.
‘They are only earning money with no intention of doing good work,” he told Hindustan Times on Thursday.
Though Bengaluru aspires to be a global city, its administrators including the government, have only focused on just over 800 square kms area, leaving most of its residents without basic amenities despite it being one of the revenue generators in the country.
Successive governments have often fallen back on the same excuse of “developing city” as a way to circumvent taking responsibility for its apathy on providing motorable roads without potholes, slush, dust and no life-threatening stretches.
Over the years, several persons have lost their lives as a result of the administration’s apathy.
Bengaluru led the country in registering cases against civic authorities for causing death due to negligence in 2020,as per the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) latest report. Its 18 cases account for 85% of all such cases reported in the country. Mumbai and New Delhi accounted for the three other cases reported in this category, while all other major cities didn’t book any civic authorities for death due to negligence, Hindustan Times reported on September 15.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has 198 wards and councillors elected from each of them. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power in the corporation since 2010 till September 2020. There has been no elected council for over one year in Bengaluru, leaving officers in-charge of most of the public works without much accountability.