There are 742 potholes yet to be fixed in Bengaluru, announced the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner BH Anil Kumar on Monday evening.
On November 1, the BBMP had announced that they had set a deadline for themselves, to fill up all potholes in the city by November 10.
The data released by the Commissioner shows that the civic body had identified 10,656 potholes in Bengaluru, which includes East, West, South, Bommanahalli, Dasarahalli, Yelahanka, Mahadevapura and RR Nagar. Of the potholes identified, 9,914 were fixed before the self-imposed deadline. A total of 742 potholes are to be filled, it claimed.
“Despite unexpected rains, very few potholes are left to be filled. They will be attended to soon,” the Commissioner said.
However, these are official figures only, which means that it need not necessarily reflect the ground reality. For instance, TNM had reported earlier that sources within the BBMP have estimated 15,000 potholes in Bengaluru. The official figure — 10,656 — is, however, around several thousand lesser.
This update from Bengaluru’s civic body comes a day after the missed deadline of November 10, to fill up thousands of potholes in the city. TNM had also previously reported that all the contractors who miss the deadline would be blacklisted.
However, according to a report by the Bangalore Mirror, the civic body Commissioner said that the deadline was only to ensure that the engineers would take up the work on a priority basis. He also added that pothole repair work is a routine matter for the BBMP, and that it is constantly battling potholes in all wards of the city.
When BBMP made the announcement, residents in the city had questioned the impact that the cursory pothole filling exercise would have. Most requested that the government look into major road work, and not the futile exercise of repairing potholes that need to be repaired again after a few days.