Palike bends rules, sets hurdles on BIAL road

Palike bends rules, sets hurdles on BIAL road

BBMP Changes width under pressure from builders, hoteliers

Basavaraj Itnaal. Bangalore
Next time your drive home from the international airport is delayed, blame it on Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BBMP). For, the civic body has bent rules of road widening project and created bottlenecks.
Three such bottlenecks have been exposed by an RTI applicant near Prestige Abshot, Hotel Le Meridian and the official residence of a high court judge – all between High Grounds junction and Windsor bridge. While the road width was supposed to be 30 metres uniformly, the width at these points is 24.08m, 24.52m and 27.13m respectively.
Interestingly, the road width near the official residence of urban development minister Suresh Kumar is 1.38m more than required.
Trustee of Mahithi Hakku Adhyana Kendra, S Amaresh ensured that the Palike engineers measured the road in his presence and documented the same. "BBMP has come under pressure from builders and hoteliers and changed the road width. This needs to be investigated by Karnataka Lokayukta," he said.
More intriguing, BBMP has said in its reply that it generated 3586 cubic metres of debris and 39275 cubic metres of soil from the work on 800 metres of road widening.
Executive engineer for road widening, HB Chidanandaiah said he did not know how so much muck was generated and where it was dumped. "The contractors take care of the debris and the cost is built into the total bill," he said.
Chidanandaiah said the width of the road was altered. "The road widening project has been progressing slowly in the last two years largely as property owners refused to give up land. The entire stretch from Minsk Square to Hebbal flyover was to have a uniform width of 30 metres but we had to change wherever there was resistance," he said.
In 2005, BBMP proposed to widen 91 roads in the city by acquiring land through transfer of development rights (TDR). This meant that BBMP would not give any cash compensation to owners of land acquired for the project. Instead, they would be given a development rights certificate (DRC) which sanctioned them an additional floor area ratio of 150 per cent of area of land given up. Since this scheme did not find any takers, the project is delayed.
Chidanandaiah said wherever government land was available, BBMP took that. On Sankey road, BBMP demolished the High Grounds police station for the project and took over a portion of the Bangalore Golf Club.
Widening of road from High Grounds to Windsor Bridge – a stretch of 600 metres – has cost BBMP Rs3.15 crore. BBMP gave work to three contractors, one for every 200 metres. As per the records, work was given to them at a cost more than 20 per cent of the tendered amount.
On this stretch, the earlier width of road was 22 metres and it is now being widened by 4 metres.