BBMP to train officials on pothole closure

Bengaluru: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike(BBMP) Senior officials have decided to provide pothole closure training to BBMP engineers who are neglecting to maintain roads properly by covering potholes.

Engineers who have studied three to five years of engineering course and have worked in BBMP for many years are not getting to cover the potholes as per the rules set by the Indian Road Congress. The number of potholes in the city is increasing due to unscientific pothole filling and by doing patch work. Realizing that the reason for this is the ignorance and irresponsibility of the engineers, BBMP senior officers have decided to provide training. The senior officials have discussed about this and soon they will fix a date and train the engineers.

There are a total of 564 engineers including 63 Executive Engineers, 213 Assistant Executive Engineers and 288 Assistant Engineers working in the civil works department of BBMP. Along with the building construction works undertaken by BBMP, they also have to do road, footpath, drainage development and maintenance work. Besides, they have to maintain the roads in their jurisdiction. If there is a pothole, if the pavement is damaged and including removing silt from the drain and other works has to be done.

The pothole problem is increasing because BBMP's 564 engineers are not doing their job properly. Thus, under the leadership of the Chief Engineer of BBMP, the training will be given by the Chief Engineers of various departments. During training the reasons for the creation of potholes, how much bitumen and its heat should be used during road development? What measures should be taken regarding road maintenance? Engineers will be informed about this.

Indian Road Congress has some rules regarding pothole closure. According to it, after creating a pothole, if there is accumulation of water and soil particles in it, it should be completely removed. After that, the pothole should be cut square or rectangular, the pothole should be filled with bitumen mixture and a roller should be passed. There are points that the road surface and pothole covered part should be equal.

While senior officials of BBMP are trained on road maintenance and repair, training is provided by a private organization on the use of Fix My Street app, which calculates potholes and provides information about pothole closures. Mainly, the use of Fix My Street app, uploading the details of potholes in it, giving its information in the app after closing the potholes and other issues will be communicated to the private company engineers.

BBMP Chief Engineer, B S Prahlad said, It is decided to train BBMP EE, AE, AEE on road maintenance and pothole closure. Training is provided by senior engineers of BBMP. The date for the training will be fixed soon.