After a tragic death and furore, Karnataka govt promises better roads by Rajyotsava

The BBMP mayor blamed the delay and halt in all city-works on the BBMP elections.

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The Karnataka government has promised to turn Bengaluru into a pothole-free city by November 1.

After the accident on September 19, in which a 25-year old woman died as she fell into a pothole, the state government has decided that it can't turn a blind-eye to the gaping pothole problem in the city anymore.

The Times of India reported that on Monday, the state cabinet had set aside Rs 1000 crores for cash-starved Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to execute road-widening and infrastructural projects under the Nagarothana scheme, which was announced in the previous budget for Bengaluru city, said the TOI report.

The funds will be used for road-widening and infrastructural projects,” said the law and parliamentary affairs minister TB Jayachandra.

The state transport minister, Ramalinga Reddy denied the need for audit or survey on the number of potholes in the city. However, he was determined that the civic agencies would repair the roads by the Rajyotsava day.

Reddy said, “Why do I need to announce or get an audit done? I only want all potholes to be filled up.”

The TOI reported that Reddy blamed the delay and halt in all city-works on the BBMP elections.

According to the newspaper report mayor BM Manjunatha Reddy has scheduled a nine-day inspection of roads in each zone, starting with Outer Ring Road from September 24 to October 6.

The TOI quoted Reddy as saying “Service roads along the ORR are in a poor state, and we've written to the BDA to hand over maintenance of service roads to the BBMP. Our first priority is to fix the arterial roads that carry the maximum vehicle load. We've directed the BBMP commissioner to tender the work at the earliest.”

The BBMP commissioner G Kumar Naik told that BBMP had already tendered works worth Rs.347 crore to the Public Works Department to redo roads completely.

“About Rs.600 crores will be spent in the first phase of the scheme to relay road,” he added.

The contractor in charge of maintaining the stretch of road will be answerable to the jurisdictional engineers, and they in turn will have to report to the zonal chief engineers.

“If a contractor defaults a number of times on the upkeep of the road, he will be blacklisted,“ Naik told the TOI.