He picks holes in BMP roads

He picks holes in BMP roads
Deccan Herald

He is no executive engineer or quality controller with the BMP. Far from it. Wing Commander Mohamed Raza Shirazi sounds like just another resident, complaining about bad roads, potholes and run-down pavements.

He knows when the bituminous tack coat on the road is not properly layered on the newly-widened road. He knows when specifications are skipped during road-asphalting or when the pavement slabs are not firmly joined.

He is no executive engineer or quality controller with the BMP. Far from it. Wing Commander Mohamed Raza Shirazi sounds like just another resident, complaining about bad roads, potholes and run-down pavements. However, this fifth generation Bangalorean does not stop at that.

Shirazi, an executive committee member of the Citizens’ Welfare Association of Langford Town and Richmond Town, stays awake all night overseeing the BMP’s road-widening work in his locality.

He has taken an average of 15 photographs a day for the past four years to show where civic agencies have erred. He uses the Right to Information Act to get details on road works in his area, and then knocks on the BMP commissioner’s door to point out irregularities which even the bureaucrat is unaware of.

His efforts have won him a special mention in the third bi-annual report prepared by the Captain Raja Rao Committee on the quality of road works.

“We are working like woodpeckers, we will keep at it till the BMP learns how to go about its business,” says Shirazi, as he sifts through a pile of photographs on his table. A framed poster in the background perhaps states the ground rule: ‘Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’

Garbage piled up at junctions, lorries and cars parked on pavements, rubbish burnt inside litigated property, street dog menace, traffic chaos, sidewalks being built, demolished and rebuilt… pictures of the apathy of the authorities find space in his family albums.

“No one can question what a photograph reveals. I challenge officials with photographic evidence, so that they don’t have an escape route,” Shirazi says.

Being an Indian Air Force man helps, believes Shirazi, who has spent nearly four decades in the IAF. “I don’t fear the authorities and interact with officials at the highest rung, unlike others who chicken out or give up,” says Shirazi, a recipient of the Vayu Sena Medal and Shourya Chakra.

Shirazi’s latest project is to bring the irregularities in the World Bank-funded road rehabilitation work on the stretch between N R Square and Hosur Road via Langford Road, to the notice of the BMP.

According to him, the first five technical specifications — pavement and camber correction, desilting of side drains, potholes and depression filling — have been given a miss.

“They moved straightaway on to applying the bituminous tack coat. During the first two days, they applied it using tow trucks, but later resumed the old manual method of spraying it using perforated tin cans. I took photographs and sent them to BMP,” he says.

Job well done. Trust him to follow it up too.