Palike to launch road history project on Feb 18

The Geographical Information System-based road history of BBMP will be launched on February 18 in a grand way, said BBMP Commissioner G Kumar Naik on Thursday.

The project is meant to bring about absolute transparency in the public works undertaken by the BBMP, where each road will get a unique identity number. It will have details such as length, breadth, works carried out there in the past, nature of work, job code, name of contractor, money spent, commencement and completion date of the work, besides the maintenance period. The GIS-based road history has been created using Google Earth satellite images.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Naik said the details were ready and would be uploaded on the Palike website for public scrutiny. “The trials of the project are in final stages and it will take only a day or two to successfully upload the information on to the Palike website.”

The commissioner said already, there was much delay and its launch cannot be kept on hold any longer. He said that any tender floated February 18 onwards would necessarily have the GIS-based unique identity number to carry out any public work in the City, especially the ones related to road and drain improvement, asphalting, pothole filling, parks, playgrounds, etc.

He said that the launch could have happened about a fortnight ago, but for the elections.
The GIS-based road history project of issuing unique identity number to each road was started about six years ago. It was almost completed in six months after the project started, but vested interests inside and outside the BBMP tried to thwart it. According to a former chairperson of the BBMP Taxation and Finance Committee, many MLAs, corporators and a few former mayors tried to derail the project.

However, the project gained momentum when top bureaucrat T M Vijay Bhaskar was the Palike’s administrator for six months in 2015. Even he had to face numerous challenges in implementing the project. The project missed many deadlines, especially in 2015.

Soon after the death of Stuti Pandey in a road accident due to a pothole last year, the Palike administration announced that the project details would be uploaded on November 1, 2015, which did not happen.

The subsequent dates were December 1, followed by December 15 and first week of January this year.