The State Government will review the white-topping of roads in the State and introduce norms for it, owing to the high cost of the process, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai informed Legislative Council on Thursday.
“If normal asphalting costs ₹75 lakh to ₹1 crore for a km, white-topping costs ₹9 to ₹10 crore for the same length. The government will relook into white-topping due to the high cost though the maintenance of the white-topped roads is low,” the Chief Minister said, responding to a question from Congress member S. Ravi. “Heavy-traffic Roads on which multi-axle vehicles ply will be given priority,” he added.
High Density corridor
To another question on the reason for retendering of work on 12 high density corridors in Bengaluru, he said the estimated cost was around ₹800 crore, which has now been reduced to ₹432 crore.
“This also included ₹500 crore for maintenance of the road for 5 years. This is not right to spend more money on maintenance than the road. Contractor is mandated to maintain the road for two years in other contracts. Efforts had also been made to bring in ineligible contractors. I wanted transparency to allow everyone to participate.” A new tender with the revised cost will be floated shortly.
Mr. Bommai also said the Python machine used for filling of potholes has been currently deployed on 182 km stretch of roads in Bengaluru, and the government has decided to further use it on 442 km stretch.
The Chief Minister also assured the House that owing to poor quality of work, Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Ltd. will not be given projects by BBMP. Several projects had been cancelled and action would be taken against those responsible for it, he said, adding that he would seek a report.
His reaction came after Mr. Ravi pointed out that a Lokayukta report had flagged 114 out of 126 projects given to KRIDL that were not executed properly. Mr. Bommai said that 12,569 works worth ₹6,536 crore has given to KRIDL by BBMP over the last five years of which 11,808 works have been completed.
Over ₹6,000 crore spent on road work
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said over the last three years, ₹6,767 crore has been spent on road work in Bengaluru. This includes ₹1,080 crore in 2018-2019, ₹4,494 in 2019-2020 and ₹1,193 in 2020-2021. The money has been spent to develop nearly 7,000 km of roads in the city, which has a road network of about 13,900 km.
