BMP walks gingerly, clears land army bill

BMP walks gingerly, clears land army bill

Deccan Herald


If the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) is to be believed, walking on Bangalore City’s cobble-stoned pavements is a smooth affair!

In a move that defies reason, the BMP has recently decided against getting the City’s cobble-stoned footpaths repaired. For, it firmly believes that the entire stretches of the ‘newly-laid’ footpaths are of good quality. And, it has almost cleared the entire bill of Rs 25.3 crore of the Karnataka Land Army Corporation (KLAC), towards the work.

KLAC had been entrusted to lay 95 km of footpath at the cost of Rs 25.3 crore under the first phase of the Footpath Upgradation Project around two years ago. But its ‘shabby’ work soon drew public criticism. Even the BMP Council, after a heated discussion, had passed a resolution stating that work was “substandard” and decided not to award phase II of the project to KLAC.


The resolution also stated that KLAC had not only used sub-standard cobble-stones for footpaths, but it did not implement the project directly. It had actually given sub-contract, against BMP’s conditions.

However, instead of directing KLAC to redo the work, the BMP has now decided to clear the bill based on a third party inspection team comprising engineers of the BMP, KLAC and Consultant Engineers Service, a private project consultant.

“The team has reported that the work is as per specifications and bills can be cleared, much against the Council’s resolution,” BMP official sources told Deccan Herald.

So far, around Rs 22 crores has been sanctioned to KLAC against the total Rs 25.3 crores.

“Only around Rs three crores bill is pending now. The decision taken by the Council that the work was substandard is incorrect,” KLAC Managing Director A S Srikanth said.

No team set up

Interestingly, the Council in its resolution has not recommended setting up any team to inspect the work. Over and above, the council was not taken into confidence before implementing the team’s findings, sources said.

When contacted, BJP leader in the council G M Mangala, who had raised a hue and cry on the issue, expressed surprise over BMP’s move to clear the bill.

“None of the corporators have any knowledge, neither are we informed on it. All corporators are expecting that the substandard work will be rectified to make good the loss,” she added.

BMP Chief Engineer Rame Gowda, however, said that inspection team was set up as KLAC had demanded for it. As the team found that footpaths are laid as per specifications, it was decided to pay the amount, he added.