10 engineers fined for poor roads in Bengaluru

The BBMP imposed penalties on 10 jurisdictional engineers for poor maintenance of roads and unscientific repair of potholes in the city.

Recently, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had decided that the assistant engineers and executive engineers concerned will be penalised Rs 1,000 per pothole.

Likewise, the BBMP imposed Rs 2,000 fine per person on 10 engineers for the sorry state of roads.

Outgoing BBMP commissioner N Manjunath Prasad said Rs 12 crore has been allocated for the filing up of potholes in major roads. "The rainy season has created many potholes especially in ward roads. The contractors in the respective wards are filling the potholes periodically," Prasad said during the BBMP council meeting on Tuesday.

The council members raised the issue of irregular tree pruning by BESCOM, leaving the debris unattended in the site. They complained that BESCOM officials are not co-operating with the BBMP. However, BESCOM officials argued that they clear the leaves and branches soon after pruning.

When asked about the status of TenderSURE roads, Prasad said: “The TenderSURE project was started in 2012 where 12 roads worth Rs 200 crore were to be constructed during phase one. About 85% of the project has been completed so far. In phase two, which started in 2016, the construction of some roads is still going on,” he said.

According to the commissioner, the white-topping project was taken up in 2016 for 29 roads (93 km) at the cost of Rs 800 crore.

“About 40 km is done so far and the work is advancing. The second phase of white-topping is halted as per the state government’s direction,” he clarified.