BMP, BDA clueless about road project

BMP, BDA clueless about road project

“Except for the proposed peripheral road project, we do not have any other project with regard to road repair,” BDA officials said.

Deccan Herald

If you thought that Bangalore roads would soon become pothole-free and motorist-friendly with Chief Minister N Dharam Singh himself announcing that 900 kms stretch of roads in the City would be upgraded, then do not be disappointed if your ride continues to be bumpy.

For, Mr Singh has not announced any new project for the upgradation nor implementing agencies have any new plans to spruce up the roads. As per Mr Singh’s statement on Monday, the road repair works should have commenced from Tuesday. However, when Deccan Herald made enquiries with the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP), Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and some city municipal councils, it was learnt that none of them were aware of the project announced by Mr Singh.

“We have not designed any new project exclusively for road upgradation at the cost of Rs 145 crore. We really do not know what Mr Singh is referring to because we do not have new plans on roads on the anvil,” BMP top officials said.
Presently, BMP has taken up a project to asphalt 1,000 kms road in its 100 wards at the cost of Rs 110 crore. In fact, this project was commenced during March, 2004, under 22 packages. Owing to the Assembly elections and the subsequent rains, work on many packages of the project was suspended and were commenced only recently.

Besides, BMP has already outsourced maintainence of 2,000 kms roads in its limits, for three years. Hence, the BMP officials said, they have no plans of taking up any new scheme to upgrade roads.
In fact, BMP was supposed to complete the asphalting project in June, 2004. But it failed to meet the deadline due some problem with the contractors and various other reasons.

BDA too has no plans to upgrade roads in CMC areas as announced by the Chief Minister.

When contacted, BMP Commissioner K Jothiramalingam said that the work on some packages of 1,000 kms road asphalting project was stopped due to technical reasons. Now, these packages have been retendered and work orders are also issued to the contractors to commence the work, he added.