Filling up potholes is not the only task the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahnagara Palike (BBMP) has missed the deadline on. For the third time, the civic body has missed the deadline for building and making operational all the 198 Indira canteens — one of the flagship programmes of the State government — in the city.
November 1 — Karnataka Rajyotsava — was the latest deadline missed to operationalise all canteens in the city. The earlier ones were August 16 and October 2.
On Wednesday, the BBMP did inaugurate 14 canteens, taking the tally to 142. However, 56 more are yet to be built and operationalised.
- August 16: 101 canteens inaugurated instead of 198, Chief Minister sets October 2 as deadline for the rest
- October 2: Only 28 canteens operationalised as against the target of 97; another deadline set for November 1
- November 1: Only 14 canteens operationalised, taking the total number to 142; no new deadline set for building the remaining canteens
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi inaugurated 101 canteens on August 16, when Chief Minister Siddaramaiah set the deadline of October 2 for the remaining 97 canteens. However, in the first week of October, the BBMP opened only 28 canteens, and Mr. Siddaramaiah set the deadline of November 1 to open the remaining canteens. However, only 14 were operationalised on Wednesday .
The BBMP has been slow even in setting up the centralised kitchens. Each Assembly constituency is supposed to have a centralised kitchen. Of the 27 kitchen to be set up, only 14 are working.
The civic body blames the rains and the subsequent flooding in the city for missing multiple deadlines — this is also the reason cited for the city’s pothole problem.
“We inaugurated 101 canteens on August 16. The first major rains that lashed the city was on Independence Day, leading to flooding. Since then the city was battered with heavy rains till mid-October, leading to flood-like situations and bad roads, apart from a few unfortunate deaths, keeping us busy,” said N. Manjunath Prasad, BBMP Commissioner.
In the two months preceding the August 15 deadline, the BBMP was working on a mission mode putting all its resources to build the canteens. Post-rains the focus of the civic body completely shifted, said a senior engineering official. Also, Indira Canteen Special Task Force, the special cell formed within the BBMP, suffered a setback when Manoj Rajan, who headed it, went on a long leave on medical reasons, only to return two weeks ago.
Mr. Prasad said work on 22 canteens was in the final stages of completion.
“Some of these canteens are scheduled for inauguration on Friday or over the weekend,” the Commissioner added.