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Karnataka government plans to make all Bengaluru roads free of potholes in 30 days
R Ashok, Karnataka’s minister for revenue, said an additional ₹1,000 crore has been released for the purpose of fixing roads in the newly added localities of Bengaluru, where damaged roads have added to the nightmarish experience of residents, especially during monsoons
Bengaluru The Karnataka government said on Thursday that all roads in Bengaluru will be pothole-free in 30 days, setting another deadline, after many missed ones, to provide one of the most basic amenities to the city’s over 12 million residents.
R Ashok, Karnataka’s minister for revenue and interim incharge of Bengaluru city, said an additional ₹1,000 crore has been released for the purpose of fixing roads in the newly added localities of Bengaluru, where damaged roads have added to the nightmarish experience of residents, especially during monsoons.
“Every day we were supposed to get 16 loads of bitumen from separate plants we have set up. But for 12 days, we did not get the load due to constant rains. The stone got wet and hot-mix was not working,” Ashok said.
The assurance on road repair comes ahead of the elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the city’s civic body, that are expected to be held early next year.
Bengaluru has 13,847 kms of arterial and sub-arterial roads, of which only 295 kms are said to be in good condition and another 246 kms have now been ridden of potholes, Ashok said.
The new deadline comes even as huge amounts of money spent for road work were revealed in the just concluded monsoon session of the state legislature between September 13-24.
Chief minister Basavaraj Bommai had revealed in the upper house of the legislature last week that the state government had spent ₹20,060 crore on road works in Bengaluru in the last five years.
Bommai, who holds the Bengaluru portfolio, said that only 1344 kms of roads, out of the over 11,200 kms, were motrable in the city, admitting to the one of the biggest infrastructural challenges gnawing at India’s IT capital.
He also announced a road maintenance audit to monitor the money spent on roads, initial estimates and final cost, maintenance history, and potholes. Bommai said he would seek responses from contractors, officials and every person involved in the works to keep a watch on the amount spent on these projects.
Though Bengaluru aspires to be a global city, its administrators have focused on a few parts of the over 800 square kms area, leaving most of its residents without basic amenities despite it being one of the revenue generators in the country, experts say.
Successive governments have often fallen back on the same excuse of “developing city” as a way to circumvent taking responsibility on providing motorable roads without potholes, slush, and dust. Its infrastructure challenges have continued to impact the lives of its residents. The poor quality of roads has led to higher amounts of dust kicking up into the air, slowing down traffic and even taking lives.
On an average, Ashoka said, each of the 198 wards has been allocated ₹20 lakh for the pothole-filling exercise.
There have also been at least three major incidents in the city in the last one week, with two dilapidated buildings collapsing. Though there has been no loss of lives in these incidents, they have brought focus on the BBMP’s building plan approvals.
Ashok said that all dilapidated buildings will get a notice in the next one week. As per a 2019 survey report, as many as 185 buildings were identified in the city and that the cost of demolition will be added to the existing property tax dues of the owners.
