BBMP misses third deadline to complete paving of Church Street; cancels gala

Work to transform Church Street under the TenderSURE project has missed one more deadline, the latest on December 1 being the third.

With no sign of the work getting completed before the year end, the weekend carnival for New Year on the refurbished street will not happen.

"It is difficult to finish the project by the year-end," admitted a BBMP official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The work would be completed by the end of January 2018. The planned New Year carnival may be cancelled."

The civic body is still to construct the drains and lay the cobblestone top, the official revealed.

The road work began on February 22 this year and the deadline for completion was set as June 1. Citing rain, Bengaluru  Development Minister K J George reset the finish date by August.

The BBMP could not meet the second deadline and fixed a third by December 1 with the promise to hold weekend carnivals around New Year.

Church Street shop owners' association president Deepak Batavia said the shops had approached the BBMP to hold a carnival on December 31. "They had promised to complete the road work by then," he said.

"But we won't force them if the work isn't complete by this year end since its better not to do things in a hurry. We'd like the BBMP to work on the road's quality," Batavia added.

The BBMP had originally planned a series of open street carnivals from December till the end of January to mark Christmas and New Year, which depended a great deal on the completion of the road work.