PWD seeks emergency funds to fix Bannerghatta Road

Rs 10cr given for repair of bad roads
The Asian Age

The public wrath over the shoddy condition of the Bannerghatta Road, has had its effect on the state public works department which has decided to place a Rs 10 crore proposal before the Cabinet to expedite work on the Bannerghatta Road, Airport Road and Vartur Road. Students of the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore and the public staged a rasta roko on Monday against the poor state of the road disrupting traffic for hours together.

Following this, the PWD held a high-level meeting on Tuesday to review city road projects. Highly placed sources told The Asian Age that due to lack of funds, PWD contractors had backed out from works for improving the Bannerghatta Road. The state government has made a budgetary provision of only Rs 10 lakhs for the project this year forcing the PWD to reduce the work to a snail’s pace, the sources added.

Explaining further why the contractors had backed out of the Bannerghatta Road project, the sources said that the total project cost was estimated to be about Rs 6 crore while the government allocated only Rs 10 lakh leaving the contractors with little option but to back out. The project was taken up with the participation of the public and corporates. On why it had failed to take off despite this, the sources said that the contribution from the public and corporates would come only after the PWD had completed its share of work amounting to Rs 2.85 crore which had not happened so far.

Another obstacle to the Bannerghatta Road project was the failure of the PWD to get clearances from the forest and environment wings, the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company and the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board for taking up road widening work. This road widening can be carried out only if the BWSSB and Bescom shift their supply lines on either side of the road, the sources said. Asked why Bescom and BWSSB had not shifted their supply lines, the source said that this involved a lot of procedural work. Both the BWSSB and Bescom have assured the PWD at a meeting last month that their clearance would be given at the earliest, the sources said. The sources were hopeful that the protest on Monday would make all departments and agencies concerned, work faster and clear hurdles besides releasing adequate funds for the road work.