Storm water drains stagnate

Storm water drains stagnate
Deccan Herald

The work of storm water drains undertaken by the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) in certain parts of the City is progressing at a snail’s pace.

The work was undertaken as a permanent solution to check flooding of water in the City during monsoons. A Rs 240 crore project was undertaken five years ago, which envisaged drainage work in the Koramangala, Challaghatta and the Vrishabhavati valleys.

Though tenders were called for the drainage work, it took one year for the Standing Committee and the BMP general meeting to approve it. Finally, last year, the BMP approved the drainage work on the Koramangala valley, but the tender on Challaghatta is yet to be finalised. As for the Vrishabhavati valley, the tender process began last week and a decision will be taken at the next BMP general body meeting, officials said.

The contract work on the Koramangala valley has been entrusted to two companies — Chandragiri and IVRCL. However, some corporators complain that the work has not been done satisfactorily. Some perfunctory digging work has been in Koramangala.

Mayor R Narayanaswamy said that the delay happened during the tenure of the previous mayor. He has asked the engineering department to speed up the work.

PARKING PLAN

The BMP is planning to entrust the responsibility of regulating vehicle parking on the City roads to private telephone operators in the wake of the scrapping of the pay and park contract.

The plan is to divide all parking zones on 134 roads into five packages, and entrusting the responsibility of maintaining each of them to the five telecom operators — Spice, Airtel, Hutch, Reliance and Tata Indicom.

“I have directed the Commissioner K Jothiramalingam to convene a meeting of the telecom operators in this regard. We will request them to take up this responsibility in the interest of the City. But BMP will not pay for it,” Mayor R Narayanaswamy said.

Telecom companies put up a number of towers on BMP’s property across the City without paying any fee. “In return, we want them to maintain our parking lots,” he explained.