BBMP plans tar plants to speed up pothole-filling exercise

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), in a bid to speed up the process of filling City potholes, is planning to set up four tar manufacturing plants under Public-Private partnership (PPP) model in different parts of the City.

The tenders for the same will be floated in four days, BBMP Commissioner G Kumar Naik said on Thursday.

“Having our own tar plants will help in immediate repair of roads, instead of waiting for tender process to get over. The four proposed plants will be able to provide required material, including bitumen, to fill up the potholes, The move, if realised, will offer an instant solution for road patch works,” the commissioner said, acknowledging BBMP’s failure to solve pothole problems in the City.

A senior official said that the four tar manufacturing plants, with a capacity to produce 80 tonnes of tar per hour, will be set up at Mallasandra (North), Anekal (South), Kannur and Gollahalli (Rural).

The BBMP will provide land for setting up of plants and the agreement will be entered into for ten years. The tar manufacturers will be paid by the BBMP, he added.

With Python 5,000 machine, at work, the steady supply of tar from the plants would speed up the pothole filling exercise in the City.

Meanwhile, Naik said although the Palike had filled a lot of potholes in the last 35 days, pits have appeared on many roads again. The Palike would send samples of bitumen and other materiel used for laying roads to the road engineering experts to study its quality in a week’s time, he said. 

The commissioner further added that the engineers would assess the extent of damage of roads across the City post showers. “After assessing the damage, we will repair the road in three weeks, by using funds from different sources,” he said.

Garbage crisis
The commissioner said that necessary steps would be taken to resolve the garbage problem in the next two days. “Due to the protest in Doddaballapura over dumping of waste as well as excess garbage generated in the festival seasons, we were not able to clear garbage on day-to-day basis. With residents calling off protests, we will be able to clear the garbage in two days, he said adding that source segregation of waste remained a challenge to the Palike.