Bangalore, Sept 13, 2013: The incessant rains in the City have made a huge mess of the already poor roads. So much so that the drive by traffic police to count the potholes has come to a naught. They have abandoned the project midway after finding that the number of craters on the road were “countless.”
The suspension of the pothole survey underlines the poor condition of roads, made worse by heavy rainfall and the poor construction quality.
Sources in the traffic police said a presentation was supposed to be made before the Home Minister K J George about the traffic scenario, bottleneck junctions, condition of roads and possible ways to tackle them.
Top officials had asked the staff at police stations to identify troublesome roads and potholes they have.
The drive started on an enthusiastic note but soon it fizzled out when the cops found out that they were quite insufficient to carry out the task as the number of potholes were much higher than expected.
Requesting anonymity, a senior police officer said, “It is not just difficult, but impossible to count potholes in Bangalore. They are just countless. The old figure available with the BBMP showed 16,000 potholes, which has long been surpassed.”
He said the problem of potholes makes the traffic police personnel go mad.
He wondered why the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, Bangalore Development Authority and the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited were not competent enough to provide proper roads to Bangalore.
“It is a sin against the honest taxpayers of Bangalore,” said the officer, seeking urgent repair for West of Chord Road, Mysore Road, Kasturba Road and Old Madras Road.
Mayor B S Sathyanarayana and the BBMP Commissioner M Lakshminarayana too admitted on Friday during a press conference that the condition of the City roads had deteriorated. But they expressed their inability to repair the roads at this juncture. Their contention: The gravels at the asphalt-mixing machine are too wet to be used.
The agencies will have to wait for clear skies before any repair could be taken up.
