Bankrupt BBMP has money to flush down the drain

BBMP officials say that the drain, at Gayathri Nagar near Dr Rajkumar Road in Rajajinagar, needs to be rebuilt as its walls are collapsing and other irregularities have been noticed.
Irked by the waste of public money, residents are protesting against the work and want an explanation from the BBMP engineers. Palike officials, on their part, brought a posse of policemen to keep the protestors away. The work has begun under tight police security.

Residents have now approached Deccan Herald to highlight irregularities in their area. Girish, a local resident, alleged that BBMP was rebuilding the drain, even though it was not necessary. He produced documents to prove his point. Girish said: “Palike engineers say that the walls are collapsing and hence need to build a drain shaped as a box.”
Glaring irregularities

Palike had built the drain with a moulded top in 2006 on 10th Cross Road at Gayathri Nagar by spending Rs 1.5 crore. Three years later, it realised that the height was not uniform throughout, due to which water gets stagnated at one place whenever it rains.
People have to struggle to cross the road during rains. It has decided to demolish the old structure and build a new one by spending Rs 3.85 crore. The work has been awarded to contractor Babu Raju.

The contract says that the work should take place on 6th Cross Road at Gayathri Nagar near Varamahalakshmi Nursing Home. But locals say that the work is taking place on 10th Cross Road. They say that BBMP, instead of demolishing the entire portion of the old drain and taking up the work afresh, is constructing in stages, which will again create problems.

“This is nothing but a means to make money, by rebuilding the same drain,” said Chandrashekhar, a local resident.

Information denied

The locals were aware that there was something fishy in the whole project and sought details of the work from BBMP under the RTI Act. But the officials did not give the information, alleged Girish.

Deccan Herald contacted BBMP Assistant Engineer Narasimhaiah, who was present at the work spot. He refused to show the work order. When he was asked to give the work order number at least, he gave the wrong work order number. Available data shows that the work order number is EE/SWD/VV/WO/20/09-10, whereas the number provided by the assistant engineer is EE-SWD VV/20/09-10.