Shoddy pothole-filling riles Bengaluru mayor

Mayor M Goutham Kumar on Wednesday ordered action against contractors who filled the potholes unscientifically and failed to sweep the Outer Ring Road.

On Tuesday, corporators had complained of incomplete white-topping of roads. The mayor promised action and inspected the roads on Wednesday.

On Hennur Main Road, Kumar was appalled to find potholes were not cut to square angles before being filled. It emerged the contractor used large-sized gravel instead of compacted gravel to fill up the potholes. This made the patchwork shoddy and the road surface uneven. The mayor censured the officials for letting such unscientific patchwork pass and asked them to penalise the contractor.

Kumar later visited the ORR near Nagawara and discovered a lot of dust on either side of the stretch. He questioned officials why sweeping machines were not being used to clean the roads, and asked them to penalise the sweeping contractor.

The mayor also inspected the white-topping of a 9.5-km stretch via Thanisandra Main Road where the BWSSB is laying water pipelines and asked for expediting the work.

He also directed the officials to complete the road-widening at Hennur Bande and restore traffic.

Kumar also visited VV Puram whose corporator Vani V Rao had complained the white-topping between Sajjan Rao Circle and Kannika Parameshwari Road was yet to complete even two years after it began.