Civic officials miss second deadline to fill potholes

Unseasonal rain, lack of hot mix being blamed for delays

BBMP officials have missed the latest deadline given by its administrator to fill the potholes in the city roads.

Failure to utilise the 10-day extension to the month-long deadline has resulted in unmotorable roads, especially in the tech corridor in Mahadevapura zone.

As a way of explanation, officials and engineers have pointed to the unseasonal rain that stopped the work to fill existing potholes, while also creating fresh ones in several zones. They also blamed lack of ‘hot mix’ supply from the BBMP plant.

While reviewing the progress in the civic works a fortnight ago, BBMP administrator Gaurav Gupta had asked the engineers to fill up the potholes in 10 days.

B S Prahlad, Chief Engineer (Road Infrastructure), BBMP, told DH that zonal officials and contractors are working continuously to repair the roads and plug the potholes.

“Unexpected rain in the last few days affected the pace of the work,” he said. “Citizens should not confuse roads dug up for the Smart City project with pothole-filling.”

Prahlad also clarified that the BBMP is coordinating with the Bengaluru City traffic police to constantly provide information and location of the roads with potholes. BBMP’s data reveals that officials have filled up only 59 potholes of 412 identified in all zones as on January 8.

Non-supply of hot mix

Following their visit to the hot mix plant in November, Gupta and commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad claimed that the civic body is producing adequate hot mix to fill the identified potholes.

They also ordered mandatory delivery of two loads of hot mix to each zone on a daily basis. But engineers have informed their bosses that they were not receiving the hot mix.

As per the civic body’s own admission, engineers and officials in the West, South, Bommanahalli and Yelahanka zones have not been getting the hot mix, suggesting that not everything is going well within the administration, irrespective of the frequent bureaucratic meetings.

Citizens and associations have also slammed the shoddy civic work.

Abdul Aleem, president of Changemakers of Kanakapura Road, said the BBMP filed an affidavit before the high court claiming that the city roads are in good condition.

“Ironically, the BBMP administrator had set the deadline of 10 days after the submission of an affidavit to the court. All of us are aware of the ground reality,” Aleem said.

Though the extended metro line on Kanakapura Road linking Central Silk institute (Anjanapura) with Yelachenahalli is due for inauguration on January 14, the stretch is still riddled with potholes.

Satish V D, a resident of Jayanagar 4th Block, said: “Earlier, people used to calculate their travel time based on traffic density. Now they do it considering the number of potholes, though the pandemic and the Work-From-Home concepts have considerably reduced traffic density on the city roads.”