Potholes to get stopgap filling

As a temporary measure to provide relief to motorists from the back-breaking potholes which are also leading to minor road accidents, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has decided to fill them with wet mix and quarry dust.

About 230 mm of rainfall in November has caused severe damage to roads across the City. The traffic police say that the pathetic road conditions shoot up non-fatal accidents. “The non-fatal accidents have gone up by around 12 per cent in the past few weeks due to sudden resurfacing of potholes. The incessant rains are also contributing to such mishaps,” Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) M A Saleem told Deccan Herald on Tuesday.

To make the roads motorable, the Major Roads Division of the BBMP has been instructed to fill potholes along major stretches with wet mix and quarry dust as a temporary measure. Once the rain stops, the Palike will use hot mix to fill the potholes. Using a hot mix of tar and gravels is not a technically viable solution to cover them up in the present situation, BBMP Commissioner G Kumar Naik said.

According to Saleem, bad roads are a major contributor to road accidents. Minor ones are not reported to the police and thus they do not have the exact number of such incidents which, he said, would have gone up in the past few days. The traffic police on their own were using jelly powder to fill up potholes as an immediate solution to prevent accidents, he said.

Besides potholes and damaged roads, rain is also leading to slow traffic in many areas. The situation gets worse during rains, as people tend to use cars instead of two-wheelers, he said.