Departmental clash damns city roads

PWD VS FINANCE DEPT
Departmental clash damns city roads
Times of India

Bangalore: An ego clash between government departments is sorted out, there is no hope for city’s pot-holed roads.

Even urgent works like the Rs 132-crore “decongestion’’ of Bangalore roads project announced by public works minister H.D. Revanna and PWD’s grand plan to upgrade Bannerghatta, Sarjapur and Airport-Whitefield roads to Golden Quadrilateral standards, have been stalled. Reason? The big fight between PWD and the finance department (FD), which provides the money.

The bone of contention is: Who decides which road to take up, for how much. “Control has been wrested from PWD with the CM’s Road Maintenance Fund. So there is a constant clash,’’ an official told The Times of India.

For example, PWD sought Rs 50 lakh per km for a running service duct along the Bannerghatta, Sarjapur, Airport-Whitefield roads, through which all services like power, water supply, telephone and optic fibre can be wired. “The road will never be cut and there will be no maintenance. We need to revise our mindsets and go for this expenditure,’’ a PWD official contended.

But the FD is not convinced. Reason: PWD’s past record. “PWD comes up with haphazard plans and figures, generally based on MLAs’ recommendations. This leads to wastage and corruption, not good roads,’’ an FD official said.

The FD controls the RMF, towards which citizens have been paying a 10 per cent cess since February 6 on almost all items carrying sales tax. The RMF has been set up as per the Tamil Nadu model to ensure that Karnataka, instead of envying its neighbour’s roads, emulates them.

But with money pooling in, the fight has hotted up. If RMF guidelines are followed, a state-level committee has to clear the investment based priorities: which places does the road connect, traffic density, need for the road, how much was invested when the road was laid and how much should be allocated for maintenance.

The PWD has already bent the rules once this year: Recently, under tremendous political pressure, the FD released Rs 60 crore for “urgent road maintenance’’ from the RMF.

But an official warned: “PWD plans look good only on paper. If this continues and we do not follow RMF guidelines, Karnataka’s roads will never be on par with AP or Tamil Nadu.’’