Revanna blames Krishna and Nilekani for bad roads

Bad roads: Revanna bulldozes his way through Krishna, IT czars' complaints
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Brushing aside the scorn over bad roads being heaped on the coalition government, Public Works Minister H.D.Revanna on Tuesday took a dig at former Chief Minister S.M.Krishna, as well as Bangalore's IT czars.

The Minister blamed the pathetic state of roads in the State, Bangalore in particular, on the heavy rainfall and ore-laden, over-loaded trucks.

Referring to Krishna's alleged complaint about bad roads to Sonia Gandhi, Revanna said, ``He is a senior politician and well educated. I am still a political novice. I would like to know whether the roads were damaged in the last four months alone.''

The Minister wanted to know what the previous government had done to maintain the roads. ``They were in power. Had I or my father Deve Gowda directed Krishna against improving the roads?''

As for the package announced by Krishna, Revanna said only Rs.33 crore of the Rs.300-crore package had been released so far.

To another question, Revanna shot back saying that the government had not started repairing 28 roads in and around Bangalore to please the IT bigwigs.

“Nandan Nilekani was the chairman of Bangalore Agenda Task Force for four years. What was he doing about the roads? He could have asked the previous government to take up road repairs.''

It may be recalled that the IT community in the City had threatened to move out of the City if infrastructure problems were not addressed immediately.

Promising to take up road repair works in the State soon after the rains subsided, Revanna reiterated that the rains and heavy trucks were the primary reason for the pathetic roads. ``Because of the good fortune of this Government and Chief Minister Dharam Singh, the State has been receiving good rains for the last four months.''

According to him, the capacity of the State highways and major district roads is far below that of the National Highways which can bear 40 tonnes of load. ``RTO officials have been checking these over-loaded vehicles and collecting penalty. I will ask the CM to convene a meeting of the Transport Minister, the Finance Minister and the officials of these departments to divert part of the penalty towards road maintenance,'' Revanna said.

The Minister said Rs.100 crore has been sanctioned for road maintenance as per the agreement between the State Government and World Bank. Promising that the remaining funds would be allocated soon, he said Rs.40 crore had been released for filling potholes in major roads.