E-Paper
₹23 cr spent to fix roads for PM’s visit: Municipal body
A fortnight before the PM’s visit, the civic body officials took action to keep all the roads that he would take in good condition. Over 14 km of roads was fixed at ₹23 crore to ensure the PM’s route was pothole free and cleaned up,” BBMP special commissioner (projects) Ravindra PN said.
Civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Tuesday said that 14-km road in the city was fixed at an expenditure of over ₹23 crore ahead of Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s visit to the city.
“When PM came to Karnataka, he visited Bengaluru and launched several programmes. A fortnight before his visit when the programme was fixed, we took action to keep all the roads that he would take, in good condition. Over 14 kms of roads was fixed at ₹23 crore to ensure the Prime Minister’s route was pothole free, painted and all cleaned up,” BBMP special commissioner (projects) Ravindra PN said on Tuesday.
The statements come at a time when the pothole-ridden city roads have been in the news for their poor quality, inadequate infrastructure and even leading to accidents.
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.
The residents have also raised the issue multiple times with the concerned authorities but to no avail.
“It just shows that BBMP can fix roads when it is required. The point is that why is it done only when the PM is visiting. Is BBMP there to impress the PM or to serve the people?” Vinay Srinivasa, an advocate and activist said.
There was a chain of requests from social media in which netizens asked the Prime Minister to ‘pass through” their respective localities as it would be the only way the BBMP would fix these roads.
Sunil Telkar from the HBR Layout Residents Welfare Association said that the PM did not pass through their locality.
But he was far less sceptical of the BBMP who he said had taken up patchwork or pothole filling in the area.
“Since the PM visit route was not passing through HBR Layout, BBMP is doing its own work here and local officials have been quite cooperative. The patchwork has already started,” Telkar said.
Mohandas Pai, the former CFO of Infosys posted a 2018 article in which there was a promise made to make the road between Hebbal and the airport smoother with the comment; “ This is from 2018, @BSBommai @CMofKarnataka. Sir needs your urgent attention.”
The BBMP special commissioner (projects) said that out of 15,769 potholes identified so far, 14,263 have been filled so far.
The BBMP said that it spent ₹35 lakh to fix a 150 metre stretch on Mysuru Road before the PM’s visit. According to the BBMP’s estimates, one kilometre of a two-lane road under the Smart City project costs anywhere between ₹7.5 to ₹11 crore (including underground ducts), and the same for a tar road is around ₹80 lakh to ₹1.3 crore.
Prime Minister Modi on Monday announced and laid the foundation for over ₹27,000 crore worth projects in the city ahead of the BBMP polls in which the Bharatiya Janata Party led by chief minister Basavaraj Bommai hopes to regain power.
Bengaluru is the capital and growth centre of Karnataka and has 28 assembly seats, making it the most important region for the state ahead of the 2023 assembly elections.
During the monsoon session of the state legislature (on September 13-24), Bommai had said that ₹20,060 crore was spent on road-related works in Bengaluru alone. An audit was announced to check the expenditure that was purportedly used for the road works.The audit report is yet to be submitted to the government.
Last year, the Bommai-led BJP government in December had said that there are around 13,847 km of arterial and sub-arterial roads in Bengaluru, of which only 295 km are said to be in good condition, and another 246-km roads are pothole riddles.
“There is something called the defect liability period, which the BBMP has not been insistent on,” a senior official of the BBMP earlier told HT.
The defect liability period states that the contractor will be liable for any damages on the roads for a certain amount of time. However, contractors said that they cannot be held responsible if civic agencies cut open roads soon after it is asphalted.
Previously, the state government was accused by the contractors of demanding commission for the public work. Last year in July, a contractor’s association had complained to the PM stating that elected representatives and officials demand as much as 40% commission for awarding of public works and before release of the payments.
The Karnataka high court has, on more than one occasion, pulled up the BBMP over the issue of potholes, constantly directing the civic body to take action and fix the roads.
The BBMP, on June 6, informed the courts that it has given the task of filling potholes to American Technology and Solutions Ltd and ₹551 would be paid for every square metre of pothole covered.
The court is expected to hear the case on June 22.
