BBMP on an overdrive to fix potholes in city

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will be in the city on November 11, has instilled a sense of urgency among BBMP officials to fix the city roads. The civic body had earlier drawn flak from Karnataka High Court for poor roads and has been attracting bad press after every fatal road accident due to potholes.

BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath said the intermittent rains were hampering road maintenance works in the city. He claimed there were around 5,000-7,000 potholes in the city, and on an average 1,000 can be fixed in a day.

However, due to recent rains they are now able to fix only 600-700 potholes a day, he added. Girinath had on November 7 issued a notice addressing all the BBMP Chief Engineers to speed up the pace of the fixing of potholes. The civic body has even laid off two engineers for poor performance.

The initial deadline to finish the works was November 11, but the authorities have now extended it to November 14. Zonal Commissioners are expected to pay a visit to their respective zones to provide a comprehensive status report from November 15 onwards.

The BBMP has at present spent a sum of Rs 23 crore to revamp the city infrastructure and has received funds to fix several roads that demand immediate attention before the arrival of the Prime minister. However, going by the past experience, these hurried fixes come undone in a short time. As per BBMP’s affidavit submitted to the High Court, 25,032 potholes were identified and 13,843 have been closed.

The court has directed the National Highway Authority of India to cross-check BBMP’s claim and submit a report. Civic activist Kathyayini Chamraj has asked the BBMP to not take up any new tenders and burden the load of their officials, who have been previously accused of not completing their work on time.

When the Prime Minister visited the city last time in June to attend a function at Ambedkar School of Economics, there was a similar flurry of road repair works. But one such road in Jnanabharathi got damaged within a day after it was thrown open to traffic.

During the current visit, the Prime Minister will be inaugurating the 108-feet tall statue of Nadaprabhu Kempegowda on the Kempegowda Inter national Airport (KIA) premises and the newly-built second terminal. Modi will also be visiting the Krantiveera Sangoli Rayanna station to flag off Vande Bharat Express to Chennai and address a couple of rallies.