Rejoice! Only 714 potholes need to be filled up in city!

Only 714 potholes need to be filled up in city!
BCC Claims It Is On ‘Holehearted’ Campaign
The Times of India

Bangalore: Here is some fantastic news. The BCC says there are only 31,824 potholes in the city. That it has already fixed 31,110 potholes of these as on Monday evening. That there are only 714 remaining to be filled.

Here is the ‘hole’ story. You must have been worried at having spotted some men closely peering at the roads. You needn’t have. They were just doing their duty: counting potholes. Every day a team led by an assistant engineer from each ward does a recce of roads in its jurisdiction. Simultaneously they ensure that the ones identified the previous day are filled up.

As BCC engineer-in-chief P.K. Srihari explains: chief engineers of each zone in the city — West, South and East — submit reports every evening with comprehensive data on potholes identified in specific areas. For instance, Shantinagar, on Monday evening, has the maximum count of 323 compared with 9 in Jayanagar.

To account for the claims of potholes being filled up every day, the BCC is also keeping stock of the tons of barrels of emulsion being used up. Monday’s count again: 1,017 barrels of emulsion have been emptied so far.

But what exactly is a pothole? A BCC engineer explains: “Shallow patches and cracks are not potholes. For us to fill it up, there should be a crater of half a foot at least.’’

That means there are 31, 824 ‘craters’ according to BCC. In case you find the 31,825th ‘crater’, just ignore it. Because it clashes with BCC’s statistics.