Road rebuilt for PM Narendra Modi's Bengaluru visit chips off in a week

BENGALURU: Kommaghatta Road, one of the roads re-laid in the Jnanabharati-Kommaghatta corridor two days before PM Narendra Modi's Bengaluru visit on Monday, has now chipped off at a few places. State minister ST Somashekar has blamed "short notice" given by the PM's Special Protection Group (SPG) personnel for the shoddy work on the road that the PM took twice while driving from Kommaghatta to Dr BR Ambedkar School of Economics (BASE) University and back.
For the PM's visit, the BBMP had repaired 14km of roads at multiple stretches spending Rs 23 crore. Following the CM's directive, BBMP chief Tushar Giri Nath has ordered an inquiry into the incident.

He said a report will be sent to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) through the state chief secretary as the same had been sought by Delhi.
He said appropriate action will be taken against officials found responsible for the shoddy work. The BBMP chief engineer issued show-cause notices to an executive engineer, an assistant executive engineer, and an assistant engineer in RR Nagar sub-division.

Somashekar told TOI they had to redo roads because SPG did not give clearance for the use of a helipad built at BASE for the PM's arrival due to security reasons. "Three days ahead of Modi's visit, the SPG, after inspecting the BASE helipad, directed the administration to ready the road for him to commute from Kommaghatta to Ambedkar School of Economics," said Somashekar, who represents Yeshwantpur assembly constituency in which a part of the affected road lies.
Somashekar said if there are some issues with the road, it would be immediately fixed by re-asphalting. The stretch falls in Yeshwantpur and Govindarajanagar assembly constituencies. "The other roads in my constituency were developed as part of regular development works," he said.
The civic agency spent Rs 11.5 crore to repair a 7km stretch of Kommaghatta road and Rs 6 crore to fix Bangalore University road.
Special commissioner (projects) Ravindra PN, who is probing the poor execution of work, said the 14km of roads developed for the PM's visit was taken up without calling any tender.
"As it was an emergency, the urban local body took exemption under section 4 of the KTPP Act. The problem is limited to two spots at Mariyappanapalya," he said, adding he visited the stretch and found out that asphalting had chipped off. He said he would soon submit a report in this regard to his higher-ups.
Questions are being raised as to why BBMP waited for the SPG to take a call as protocol dictates that alternative arrangements to air travel should be in place. Former councillor Abdul Wajid said, "The Palike knew about the PM's visit well in advance and yet did not act. Even after the confirmation of events and routes, why did it wait for SPG approval?"
A pothole that has reappeared inside Bangalore University campus was not on any of the road stretches relaid for the PM's visit, BBMP officials said. The pothole was fixed in November 2021 and it caved in again due to water seepage. The officials are now investigating the source of the seepage.
Ravindra said it was wrongly projected that the pothole had reappeared along the road that the PM took, but Modi did not travel on the particular stretch.