Bengaluru: The patchwork that the city roads witnessed in recent times has gone. Potholes are back!Short spells of rain have created endless potholes on the roads, turning people’s daily commute into an ordeal in the tech capital. “The traffic does not move at a decent speed in the city. When it moves, we are only riding into backbreaking potholes. It is quite pathetic that the roads are becoming the city’s nemesis and those in power are not paying attention to it. Why can’t the country’s tech capital give pothole-free roads or fix potholes before these become craters?” is the question many ask as the average time to travel 10km in the city touched 42 minutes Wednesday evening (according to TomTom traffic index).Though BBMP chief commissioner Maheshwara Rao has been hitting the ground on a daily basis and ordering filling of potholes, they seem to be popping up at a much faster pace. Even TenderSURE roads such as Convent Road which is dotted with schools, are broken at multiple places.“In the past decade, if the money spent on road development is accounted for, every street in the city should be gleaming. But it is hard to find even a single stretch without potholes,” said Kamalesh Jain, a resident of Sarvagnanagar.Bengaluru has 13,344km of roads, with 1,300km of them being arterial and sub-arterial. In just the past two years, Rs 5,365 crore was spent on road development, including asphalting, and white-topping. Yet a single drive across the city shows that this money has gone down the drain quickly.“Bengaluru receives nearly 1,000mm of rainfall annually, but the roads are in such bad shape that even one or two days of rain make them look like the moon’s cratered surface. Navigating these roads becomes risky… Dodging one pothole often leads straight into another, resulting in injuries and accidents, especially for two-wheeler riders,” said Naveen Reddy, a resident of BTM Layout.In many outer zones of the city, roads resemble muddy fields. Shoddy workmanship has led to the tar peeling off, leaving behind loose gravel.“Even when people lose their lives or suffer spinal injuries due to potholes, BBMP—which is responsible for road maintenance—acts as though it’s none of its concern. Potholes dominate not just ward-level and arterial roads but even flyovers. Every year, several people lose their lives due to pothole-related accidents, yet there is no permanent solution,” said Kiran J, a resident of Shantinagar. “BBMP either uses poor quality asphalt or they just fill only thin layers of asphalt so that they can raise more bills and make money,” he added.——–Inset – 1BBMP says working relentlesslyA senior BBMP official of road infrastructure said, “To identify and fix potholes, zonal task forces have been set up; they are authorised to approve funds and float tenders for pothole repairs. They are also expected to work on complaints raised by traffic police and the public.”“BBMP engineers in each ward are responsible for immediately filling up any pothole that appears. If they fail to do so, disciplinary action is supposed to follow,” the official said.BBMP chief commissioner Maheshwar Rao told TOI, “We are working relentlessly to fix the potholes across the city and we are also informing citizens to raise complaints and send the photos of potholes to the BBMP engineers, who will address the issue promptly.”——Inset – 2Method of fixingAccording to the National Roads Congress guidelines, a pothole must be cut into a square shape, dust removed, tar filled properly, and rolled for compaction.
