BBMP's tall story about the roads

Reality check

The BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) set itself a 20-day deadline to fill all the crater-like potholes, across prominent places in the City.

Although some patchwork has been carried out in some places, there seems to be no respite from bumpy rides for Bangaloreans with vast swathes of the City still pockmarked with potholes.

 The BBMP says it is now working to make Bangalore roads free of potholes in three months time. The repair and relaying work of close to 400 km stretch of roads has started under a whopping budget of Rs 500 crore.

Metrolife interacted with the BBMP officials to understand how much of work has been done, and also to people to understand if driving on Bangalore roads has become easier.
BBMP commissioner M Lakshminarayana points out that a lot of construction works across the City have rendered the roads unmotorable and have led to potholes.

But he says, despite the given limitations, the BBMP has started the work. “There are a couple of roads that have been taken up for asphalting and a few other roads where only patchwork will be carried out, considering that it’s the rainy season. Tar will be mixed with bitumin and then laid on the road to make it stronger,” explains Lakshminarayana.

KT Nagaraja, superintendent engineer of road works, BBMP points out that about 81 roads have been identified for tarring and rectification work.

“Since it is the rainy season, civil works comprising drain repair and footpath laying will be carried out before the actual tarring is done. Patchwork has been completed on road length of about 1,43,790 sqm,” claims Nagaraja. He further states that jelly and jelly powder with cement are being mixed with tar and then slapped on the road.

“This will strengthen the road,” he adds. Nagaraja says that Nandidurga Road, 3rd Main Basavanagudi and Shivaram Karanth Road have been completely repaired and tarred.    
However, regular commuters continue to be the worst affected.

They observe that all these tall claims are not convincing enough. Guruprasad R Rao, an IT professional, takes the Mysore Road stretch almost everyday and feels the situation hasn’t improved at all.

“Yes, patchwork has been carried out at a few places but those roads get damaged again after a short spell of rain. So what’s all this noise of roads being tarred? There are a lot of people who’ve developed serious back issues. Even the stretch in front of Hosmat Hospital has crater-like potholes,” he states.

Pooja Ramesh, another professional, recalls that her main lessons in driving was how to dodge the potholes on the City roads.

 “The moment I hit the main roads, I remember the most important lesson in driving is ‘dodging potholes’. I am not sure what our government is doing about it but it seems to be increasing by the day,” says Pooja.

 Karthikeyan Ranganathan, another young man, is disturbed by the number of accidents and deaths caused due to potholes.

“It is sad to read that people are dying because of bad roads. Isn’t this a ‘big enough signal’ for the government to get the roads repaired?” he wonders.