High Court sets 15-day deadline for BBMP to fix potholes in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has again set a deadline of 15 days for the Bruhat Bengaluru MahanagaraPalike (BBMP) to fix the potholes inthe Central area of the city.

Hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed in 2015 by one Vijay Menon of Koramangala, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Rituraj Awasthi said, "As per the previous order, the BBMP has filed a plan to close the potholes in the city's CBD (Central Business District). We are not satisfied with that action plan. We have consulted with the BBMP Commissioner and Chief Engineer about the problem. And all potholes should be closed in 15 days using modern technology."

The BBMP should comply with the order and submit its report at the next hearing. It should not keep on giving excuses in this regard, the court said.

The civic body should conduct a three-day CBD road survey and with the help of the organizations concerned, should repair potholes using modern technology withing the deadline.

At the last hearing, the BBMP had submitted an action plan envisaging deployment of Python, a self-propelled machine, to fill potholes in the city. In the report, the BBMP council told the bench that BBMP had used the new machine(Python) to fix the city central district area potholes.

At the last hearing, the bench expressed concern over the death of people due to potholes and questioned the BBMP's failureto solve the problem.

"BBMP engineers do this on purpose. The problems are not fixed despite thousands of crores of rupees being spent. So, we order the government to replace the BBMP engineers. The responsibility for road maintenance would be given to military engineering," the bench warned.

The court also took note of the death of a software company employee Ashwin, after falling into a pit dug up by the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) on Monday night in the city. Expressing his dismay, the Chief Justice said, "Whenever we read in the media about death of someone due to bad roads in Bangalore, we are haunted by a feeling of guilt."

"The situation is not improving despite a series of directions from the courts, which is indeed a painful thing. We apologize for the untimely death of that young man," the CJ said.

Ashwin, a resident of Vaderhalli, diedafter falling into the pitnear Sambhram College, Munneshwara Layout Road, MS Palya, under Yelahanka Traffic Police Station limits. The BWSSB had completed the work related to drinking water and sewerage system for 110 villages in June 2021 and handed over the road development work to the BBMP officials who failed to carry out repairs.