BDA did the mess, BWSSB dug it up, BBMP repaired it

BDA did the mess, BWSSB dug it up, BBMP repaired it

It’s pass the buck all the way at the Dairy Circle flyover

Atul Chaturvedi
Posted On Thursday, December 04, 2008

The blame game has once again started; this time not by political parties, but rather civic bodies that are trying to pass the buck to each other.

The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) built the Dairy Circle flyover, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) dug the road below it to repair a leakage and the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) repaired the damage to the road.

The BDA constructed the 535-metre Dairy Circle flyover at a cost of Rs 11.25 crore in 2004. Below the flyover, moving towards Bannerghatta road, BWSSB faced a leakage problem in its drinking water supply pipeline. Sources said that on Sunday, the BWSSB did some repair work and dug a five feet deep and 10 meters wide ditch for the purpose. After the repair, it filled up the ditch using an ordinary soil. That affected traffic on Monday.

The entire stretch of the Bannerghatta Road at the circle has turned to be a bottleneck as the roadwidth has shrunk, due to the negligence of BWSSB.

A BBMP official said that the road has to be maintained by BDA as they have constructed it. But no BDA official had visited the spot till Monday and tried to see what the problem was. The BBMP has spent more than Rs 4 lakh on the maintenance work as it has to be maintained according to Indian Road Congress norms.

BBMP chief engineer Jeevan Pal told this newspaper, “The BWSSB has not taken any permission from the BBMP to dig the road. They have done it on their own and not repaired it properly. They have used raw soil to cover it. Now, we have removed all the soil and put sand and other materialising the wet mix macadam process to bring it to its normal position. We will discuss with senior officers whether the tar road is to be laid by us”.

More leakages

In fact, we found that there are more leakages below the flyover on the road. The leakage points can be easily identified.

According to sources, there are many leaks and BWSSB has repaired only one. The water is leaking over the road.

A BDA engineer has a different story to narrate: When the flyover was constructed, it was delayed due to various reasons
and as a result, the cost escalated. There was intense pressure on the construction agency to execute the project quickly as it was an important junction connecting the busy Hosur road. The construction company was asked to shift two BWSSB pipelines which were underneath the road. However, the company, in its hurry, failed to do so and the current problems are due to the non-shifting of pipelines.