BBMP puts ward, zonal engg in charge of pothole-filling

Mysuru Road, near Nayandahalli Signal. DH PHOTO/IRSHAD MAHAMMAD

Railway Parallel Road, Kumara Krupa Road, on Wednedsay. DH PHOTO//JANARDHAN B K

In a bid to fix responsibility for pothole filling, the BBMP has put ward engineers and zonal level officials in road infrastructure and project central departments in charge of the task.

As the November 10 deadline to fill potholes draws nearer, the decision has been taken to stop various departments from dodging the pothole-filling work.

Departments responsible for road construction such as Road Infrastructure (RI), Project Central (PC) and others like Lakes, Storm Water Drains (SWD) will have to build the roads, maintain and hand them over to the ward and zonal engineers.

An order from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner BH Anil Kumar, defining the responsibilities of the ward officials, said: “Project Central must take up the execution of white topping, TenderSURE (etc) and hand over the maintenance (of the roads) to the zones and wards to which the civic work areas come.”

Similarly, the Road Infrastructure Department will develop, widen the roads including high-density corridor, SWD department will take up the development works and then handover the maintenance to ward and zonal officials,” the letter read.

Kumar told DH that the move is to hold one person accountable for the works. “Until now, department officials have been dodging the work saying some other department is responsible for the works. Now, zonal and ward officials will only be held responsible to fix the problem. The department (categorisations) are there for the officials, but the public only want solutions. We can’t let the public go around all the departments to get their problems solved,” he said.

The BBMP has asked the ward and zonal officials to utilise the escrow account
(created for the purpose) to ensure potholes are plugged through timely maintenance of roads.

The Road Infrastructure Department looks after 12 High-Density Corridor works, including 2000 kilometres of arterial roads, while Project Central department handles the execution of white topping, TenderSURE, grade separator and other works along the city’s major sub-arterial roads.