BENGALURU:  For a city which patiently puts up with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) usually dragging its feet when it comes to implementation of projects, here’s a shocker — the civic agency has acted with lightning speed to issue tenders to begin work on white-topping of 92 roads, getting consultants to finish a detailed project report (DPR) in less than two weeks, then calling 
for work tenders, even before the DPR submission ended. 

This breakneck speed of the BBMP, has left officials as well as civic experts stumped.
Work on the project, valued at around Rs 1,000 crore, is likely to be taken up even before the BBMP manages to complete other projects proposed in previous budgets. 

The state government had approved the action plan for various civic projects on February 1 and BBMP floated the tender calling for a DPR on February 8. Work on preparing the DPR started around February 19 after bids were opened on February 18. Interestingly, BBMP floated work tenders for white-topping of all these roads on Saturday, having received the DPR ahead of its submission time.

Old works pending, why take up new white-topping project: Experts

Bengalureans will be surprised to know that BBMP can work at lightning speed if it wants to! It has got a detailed project report completed in just 10 days and also called for tenders for white-topping of 92 roads at a cost of Rs 930 crore. This, when it is working at snail’s pace on white-topping of 29 roads (ongoing) from 2016-17 grants and 40 roads (yet to be taken up) of 2017-18 grants. It has just completed work on 20km till now.

A BBMP official said, “When not even 20% of works proposed in 2016-17 are completed and BBMP could not even touch a single road that was earmarked for white topping in 2017-18, the priority should be to complete the existing work. Moreover, the timeline of 10 days for DPR makes it seem like work on preparing the report might have been started by the consultancy many months earlier. This raises the question if the consultancies who bid for preparing the DPR were already aware that they would be selected.” 

Civic experts wonder how a project report could be rushed. “It is good to have proper planning about a project before taking it up. I believe the agency should have taken more time for studying major projects like white-topping,” said V Ravichander, civic expert.

Ashwin Mahesh, another civic expert, said, “The only reason in the whole story is that the BBMP wants to initiate the work before the model code of conduct comes into place.” Srinivas Alavilli, member, Citizens for Bengaluru, said, “When the election nears, the BBMP gets serious about many projects and we all know why! It is also true that BBMP is keen on issuing work orders to contractors than taking up the work. The government should not interfere in projects. It should allocate funds and local civic body should identify the projects with the consultation of ward committee,” he said. 

BBMP Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad said, “It is true that the tenders are being called early so that the election model code of conduct will not affect the project. There is no compromise in preparing the DPR. The consultants will deploy more experts and get the work done. Moreover, the technical committee will be headed by IISc professors.”