Siddaramaiah's home dist, Bengaluru fall short of govt's road work target

Since taking office, the Siddaramaiah government has aggressively pumped in money — Rs 8,597.61 crore to be precise — on improving state highways and major district roads.

However, the chief minister’s home district of Mysuru and two others — Bengaluru Urban and Uttara Kannada — are lagging behind the target of the length of roads to be improved before March 2018, when Karnataka goes to polls, according to data from Pratibimba, the chief minister’s dashboard. Ironically, Public Works Minister H C Mahadevappa is also the Mysuru district in-charge minister.

Since April 2013, the state government has reconstructed, widened, strengthened or renewed 15,657 km of state highways and major district roads using its own budgetary allocation. Progress of roads works in all districts — except Bengaluru Urban, Mysuru and Uttara Kannada — is above 70%, with the target exceeding in many cases.

In Mysuru, for instance, the authorities have managed to cover 829 km out of a targeted 1,252.74 km. Similarly, the progress in Uttara Kannada is 395 km out of 588.48 km and in Bengaluru Urban it is 313 km of 496.04 km — all three fall in the category of districts where works are stuck between 31% and 70%.

Road works in Mysuru are doing well, according to chief minister’s principal secretary L K Atheeq. “There could be some delays due to tendering. Those will pick up pace in the coming months,” he told DH. “Most of the PWD road projects cut across districts and are not assigned to any districts. Those projects are all doing well.” Projects assigned against each district are also doing well, he added. In Uttara Kannada, road works will pick up pace after the rainy season ends.

Pratibimba, a web-based platform showcasing the government’s performance and achievements, was launched in March, making Karnataka the second state after Andhra Pradesh to have such a public dashboard. It is only four months old and Atheeq does not rule out technical glitches. “There could be data issues and the Pratibimba team is looking into them.”