Confusion prevails on road restoration in 110 villages

When it comes to road digging and restoration, civic agencies keep blaming each other and reveal a palpable lack of coordination among themselves.

A newly asphalted road somehow gets dug up and the agencies point fingers at each other for the mess.

Despite a 2016 Urban Development Department circular that only the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike should take up road restoration work using the Nagarothan funds, confusion prevails on who is re-laying the roads in 110 villages.

To ensure understanding among the agencies, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) recently sent out a list of areas and names of roads where they would lay the underground drainage pipes.

This is essentially to inform the BBMP not to take up any asphalting in the places since the roads would be dug up.

A BWSSB engineer said they recently wrote to BBMP saying only "wet mix" would be used in places where they lay the UDG pipes to ensure no traffic obstructions. "The instructions were that BBMP would use the Nagarothan funds to restore the roads and we had to only intimate them about the place where the roads would be dug up," the engineer said.

He admitted that confusion remains about the 110 villages, which should be discussed at the highest level in the government.

BBMP's engineer-in-chief M R Venkatesh said the civic agency would temporarily restore the roads since the BWSSB is still to complete the water lines and take up UGD work. "We would be using granular subbase (GSP) and wet mix macadam (WMM) to make the roads motorable and BWSSB must pay for it," he said, adding that the civic body would use the Nagarothan funds for permanent restoration.

The BWSSB began the UGD work a week ago in Sidedahalli, Abbegere and Shettihalli areas in Dasarahalli. They would subsequently lay UGD pipes in Bytarayanapura, Mahadevapura and Bommanahalli.

They say about 40% of water line pipes have been laid in 110 villages so far.