JOIN US It was a small stretch of road at Kallahalli near Halasuru lake, which was to be asphalted at a cost of Rs 22 lakh in 60 days in April 2012.
Four years down the line, there is zero progress. The fake bill scam in BBMP, with the unholy nexus of officers and contractors, would have consumed the road work had the local residents not got alerted.
Kalidas Reddy, one of the residents, grew suspicious in 2014 when the road was dug up, but the work was stopped abruptly. He filed an RTI application to know the status of the road work. The BBMP had given the work order to contractor G Vasu on February 17, 2012 with a deadline to finish the work by April 16, 2012, but till 2014 there was no progress.
Further probe by the residents revealed that the BBMP officials were about to make payments to him. Many complaints were filed, including one to the Lokayukta, but none fetched any result.
The Lokayukta investigation was closed when Justice Y Bhaskar Rao was heading it. The reason given for the closure was that since the BBMP had not released any payment, there was no need to pursue the matter. Despite the long delay in executing the work, the Palike officials were not ready to initiate action against the contractor. Subsequent RTI applications finally compelled the BBMP engineers to withhold the Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) of contractor Vasu.
The residents of Kallahalli are disappointed over the fact that the contractor has not yet been blacklisted.