Roads in Bangalore

As one trained in Civil Engineering, I cringe when I travel on Bangalore’s roads. I am not talking about just the potholes here. In pavement design, we were taught about camber, berms, designing for natural drainage of the road surface, proportion of bitumen in the mix, proportion of corase and fine aggregate, temeperature of the bitumen mix when it is to be laid, number of passes by rollers etc. But one look at most roads in Bangalore today (and I must confess I have not gone to the new airport or yet or travelled on the “NICE Road”- so no comments on them)- and I am convinced that the people responsible for constructing these roads either do not have the qualifications or have sold their professional pride (and souls) to the devil for a pile of cash.

Is it any wonder then, that road surfaces start disintegrating within a few months, if not weeks or days, of them being laid? Think of the incremental fuel being consumed because of poor road conditions. And then think about what poor riding comfort does to your car’s shock absorbers- and to your own skeletal system!

Although the initial cost will be an order of magnitude higher, I think it is worth concreting the arterial roads. Rigid pavements (to give concrete roads their technical name) will mean longer road life and lower maintenance cost over say a 20 year period. Of course, that too depends on the concrete mix used and curing techniques adopted.

Major contractors are either kept out or not interested or are seldom selected because they are expensive. Naturally, the contracts are awarded to smaller contractors who may neither have the technical expertise nor the wherewithal (or willingness) to use modern road construction techniques. Further, many of them would have paid hefty bribes to win the contract- and their main interest would be to recover several multiples of their “investment”.

Perhaps what is needed is for more of us (members of the public) to file a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act about which contractor was awarded which contracts, at what price, whether the road was inspected and certified by the competent authority and finally, whether the bills have been paid. Quite a Pandora’s box, I would imagine.