Designed to be doomed

Lack of expertise in civic agencies, coupled with local leaders pushing for their projects, has given the City its infrastructure white elephants

Every time one takes a flyover or an underpass, one gets the feeling it could have been designed better and the ride far better. What has led to this are the planning lapses on the part of the civic agencies.

One example is the major design flaw discovered at a bridge on the stormwater drain (SWD) being built by the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), near the Gali Anjaneya temple on Mysore Road. Gaping potholes on flyovers, water pools in underpasses and pedestrian subways are all the result of the design flaws.

Faulty designs in infrastructure works have become the norm in Bangalore. These have not just cost the exchequer dear, but also emerged as nightmares for road-users.

Taxpayers want to know who decides on the designs, whether stakeholder meetings are held properly before executing a project and whether there are remedies. Deccan Herald spoke to urban planners, civic experts and the public, to throw more light on the issue.

According to Sudhakar K, a civic expert, the root cause for the faulty design of many infrastructure works lies in the decision-making process itself. Often, explains Sudhakar, it is the local corporator or legislator who suddenly comes up with a project for his ward or constituency.

The local representatives put pressure on the civic agencies to execute their “plan,” irrespective of whether there is provision for such a subway, road or bridge in the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for that area.

Projects initiated by civic agencies, urban planner AS Kodandapani points out, are doomed because of the serious shortage of expertise. The BBMP and BDA, which implement a major chunk of infrastructure projects, lack this critical requirement.   
Kodandapani recalls that the problem of design had started with the city’s first flyover. The traffic congestion in and around Majestic area could have been easily avoided, if an access to the Sirsi Circle flyover was provided to buses coming out of the KSRTC/BMTC bus stands in that area, and moving towards Mysore Road. Due to lack of such an access, the buses are forced to negotiate congested areas, triggering traffic chaos daily.

In some cases, the task of preparing the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for
infrastructure projects is entrusted to private agencies, who charge exorbitant amounts. Once the reports are submitted, whether planners and engineers in the civic agencies do a verification is a matter of debate.

Kathyayini Chamaraj, executive trustee of the NGO, CIVIC Bangalore, says before the execution of mega projects, the civic agencies do conduct stakeholder meetings with NGOs. However, none of their suggestions or objections are accepted by the decision-makers, she adds.

She cites the case of the stakeholder meetings conducted by the State government while introducing the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) projects to Bangalore. During the consultation meetings, she recalls, many NGOs rejected some of the project proposals. But the decision-makers chose not to take note of it.

Eventually, when the projects were finalised, they were in the format the government wanted. Similar was the case when the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) came out with its draft of the CDP 2015. Even though thousands of public suggestions and objections were received, not many of them found place in the final CDP. The minutes and notes of the stakeholder meetings are twisted to the convenience of decision-makers, says Kathyayini.

There are ways out indeed. As Kodandapani puts it, one solution to avoid such design flaws, is to publish the sketches and designs of infrastructure projects in newspapers and other media for the reference of public, so that they can give their feedback.
On implementation of projects related to traffic management, he suggests that regular road users of a particular area or junction be interviewed randomly to understand the practical problems associated with a project proposed for that locality.

Civic experts also stress on effective implementation of Section 4 of the Right To Information (RTI) Act, which mandates disclosure of project plan to those set to be affected by the same. In the words of Kathyayini, the Act also mandates the disclosure of rationale of the decision on a particular project to the public. However, she laments, the civic authorities “protect the secrecy” of the project by saying they cannot disclose
details, till it gets clearance from the State cabinet.

Dinakar N, an RTI activist, informs that according to a ruling of the Central Information Commission (CIC), civic agencies can disclose details of the draft report of any project, except its final copy, that needs to be submitted to the cabinet for approval. But Dinakar himself found that this ruling has had no effect. To a query on the CIC ruling, he was told by officials of the civic agencies that the ruling does not apply to them.

Other urban planners feel policy changes are needed to the municipal laws to make it mandatory for projects to go through the process of public consultation before implementation. Experts cite the case of the Panchayat Raj Act, which mandates that any industry or project coming up in villages needs to be discussed and approved at the Gram Sabhas (village meetings). However, in laws pertaining to towns and cities, there is no such provision, they said.

Design flaws keep 70 pc projects pending

The problem in planning and design flaws have kept pending close to 70 per cent of the infrastructure projects that were proposed by the BBMP as early as 2009. While the Kadirenahalli underpass still awaits completion, at the other end of the City, the CNR Rao Junction underpass near IISc appears to be an utter failure.

When questioned about the reason for the failure, a senior official from the BBMP admitted that there was a problem in the planning of infrastructure projects. He attributed it to the lack of expertise. However, he said, Palike engineers alone should not be blamed for such failures. He said, in many instances, pressure from the local corporator or MLA puts them in such a situation that they cannot do much.

Another official said, despite being blacklisted for shoddy work and penalties being levied for the delay, some contractors were back in business with the influence of politicians. He said unless this nexus was broken, one could not expect proper implementation of the projects in the City.

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