Find pothole, pocket Rs 100

Find pothole, pocket Rs 100
Fed Up With Complaints, BMP To Hold A Contest
The Times of India

Bangalore: Bangaloreans, win Rs 100. All you have to do is spot a pothole and inform the BMP.

Fed up with numerous complaints, the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) has hit upon this hole-proof idea. Once it clears the city of its spine-creaking, bone-jostling craters, the BMP will shortly announce a competition for citizens wherein if they find a pothole on a specified stretch of the road, they can win the reward.

Explained BMP commissioner K Jothiramalingam: “We are planning to declare some length of roads across the three zones of the city as pothole free. For instance, if 50 km of road in east zone is declared clean and a citizen finds even one pothole in that stretch, she or he will get Rs 100 per hole. ‘’

This money is not a surplus coming from the BMP’s coffers. Stuck in the potholes are the zonal engineers: the money will be deducted from the concerned zonal engineer’s salary every month. In fact, to start with, a corpus of money will be deposited with an external agency, “I will myself deposit Rs 1000,’’ declared Jothiramalingam.

The scheme has apparently been conceived to sensitise engineers towards vehicle users and their plight when they thud into a pothole. Besides, salaries will be cut across hierarchies, just to put the fear of God among everybody. Only money will motivate both the work executor and the citizen towards any kind of action, say BMP officials.

BMP’s engineering personnel have been maintaining that their pothole-filling drive has been going gung-ho for months now. As of Wednesday night, 30 teams set out on a nocturnal expedition of filling potholes. This exercise will apparently be a regular feature till the city’s roads are made potholefree.

On the ‘hole’, a good idea to get rich. Just ensure BMP’s purse doesn’t have potholes!

POTHOLED PROMISES
December 2001: Former mayor K Chandrashekar announced a 15-day pothole-filling drive. Stated that the engineers would forgo their salaries if the deadline is not met. Result: damp squib.

December 9, 2003: Former BCC commissioner announced that in 10 days, “by and large, all potholes will be filled.’’
Former Mayor C M Nagaraj’s explanation after 9-12-2003: As many as 20,264 potholes were filled as against 21,030 potholes identified. Nearly 8,577 road cuttings were identified of which 8,193 were restored to its original shape.