Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday told the Legislative Council that fresh tenders would be floated for the improvement and maintenance of 12 high traffic density corridors in Bengaluru.
Admitting “errors” in the way the project was being taken up, Bommai said that the government had instructed the Karnataka Road Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL) to call short-term tenders afresh after the “errors” in the finalisation of four packages of works were discovered during the verification of financial bids.
“An amount of Rs 780 crore was supposed to be the maintenance cost for five years when Rs 335 crore was the estimated cost for road development works. Why is maintenance cost needed for a 53 kilometre stretch of white-topped roads? A blacklisted contractor was also included in the tender process,” Bommai said, explaining the reasons for the decision to retender the project.
The 12 corridors include Ballari Road, Old Madras Road, Old Airport Road, Sarjapur Road, Mysuru Road, Tumakuru Road and West of Chord Road. A total of Rs 1,120.48 crore was approved including Rs 335.17 crore for the initial development of 65.85 kilometre stretches.
“As per the design finalised by the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), 1.50 kilometre stretch of Old Airport Road and 1.10 kilometre stretch of Magadi Road are being developed as demo reach,” Bommai said in response to a question by former mayor PR Ramesh of the
Congress.
Ramesh said that the quality of works was not good on demo reaches, while the corridors had become no man’s road as funds were not yet released even after the announcement was made in the 2020-21 budget.
Bommai told the Council that 382.27 acres of Rajakaluves (stormwater drains) in Bengaluru were encroached upon in 2,626 cases. Of them, 1,912 encroachments were cleared as on December 24 last year.
“Survey is on to properly identify remaining 714 encroachments and steps are being taken to clear them in a phased manner,” he said.
“Works to remodel 128 km stormwater drains, especially on stretches having bottlenecks, will be taken up at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore this year itself,” Bommai said, adding that remaining stretches would be taken up in coming years.
“The total length of stormwater drains in Bengaluru is 842 kilometres, and re-modelling has to be done on 414 kilometres for which Rs 4,670.48 crore is required. About 313.21 kilometres of stormwater drains were re-modelled since 2016-17 spending Rs 1,658.41 crore,” he noted.
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