‘Concrete’ plan conks

‘Concrete’ plan conks
BBMP concretises pavement in Koramangala without bothering about underground utilities. Now it is digging it to repair damaged pipeline
RADHA BHONGALE & RESHMA R
BANGALORE MIRROR BUREAU


It seems the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s decision to concretise pavements is just another way of sending public money down the drain. At several places, such pavements are being dug up again, either to repair pipelines or to clear clogged drains that run beneath them.
LEAKAGE LOCATION
An example is the newly-laid pavement at KHB Colony in Koramangala 5th Block which has been dug up at several points in a bid to locate the leakage of a BWSSB pipeline that runs below it. Water has been flowing from the pipe for over a month with no one bothering to repair it.
President of Koramangala Residents Forum, Dr Umeshwara, said, “When the city is facing acute water shortage, we cannot sit and watch this atrocity. I had complained to the officials many times, but they don’t seem to care. A pipeline under the cement pavement must have cracked while digging it up for some maintenance work. But that has not been rectified since then.”
HASSLED PEDESTRIANS
For the past one year, this road has seen all kinds of pavements - stone slabs, tiles, interlocking cement slabs and now a concrete one. Several times, the residents’ forum has urged the BBMP officials not to keep changing the pavement as the frequent works add to the hassles of the pedestrians.
“I realised the problem when they began to dig up the tiled footpath. I called up the engineer and complained to the BBMP many a times requesting them not to change the pavements so often. But they do not listen to us,” said Umeshwara. BWSSB site inspector Revanna Kumar said, “These pavements are pathetic. They make it difficult to locate the cause of the water leakage. The BBMP concretised the pavement despite our requests not to do so. This isn’t the first time this has happened.”
A similar incident took place in Jayanagar recently. A drainage chamber under the pavement was broken near Harishchandra Ghat leaving the entire area stinking. The list of such complaints goes on. While in some cases people complain that the authorities responded very late, in others they were not taking any action at all.