‘Keep off BMP works’

‘Keep off BMP works’
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Captain Raja Rao, chairman of the expert committee formed to oversee irregularities in the BMP, asked politicians not to interfere in the civic body’s functioning.

Speaking at the celebration of the 145th birth anniversary of Sir M Visvesvaraya, he said, “With the formation of Greater Bangalore, the challenges faced by BMP would be enormous and all politicians should cooperate and encourage this venture rather than interfere in its working.”

He later spoke to this websites newspaper and elaborated that engineers in BMP faced a lot of political pressure and only a few courageous ones were able to withstand the pressure and work in an unbiased manner.

He also said that quite a lot of engineers had obtained employment in BMP after paying bribes and this made them prone to corruption later.

Giving examples of misuse by politicians, he said that preparing fake bills, fictitious contracts and paying too much money to contractors were all very common.

“One corporator had the asphalt removed on the road in front of his house and had it replaced by concrete and this work was done by BMP. When the case was referred to the court by the expert committee, the politician claimed that all the work was undertaken at his own expense!”

Action against the corrupt officials was taking a long time, he claimed, since the entire process of referring a case to the BMP, and the case going to court was time consuming.