As Bengaluru’s crumbling infrastructure has come into focus over the past few weeks amidst the incessant rains, the Karnataka High Court on Monday, September 19, gave the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) a deadline to fill up the city’s potholes. A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty gave the civic body 10 days to repair or fill up 221 potholes on major roads that have been identified by the BBMP.

The bench was hearing a 2015 petition filed by one Vijay Menon, who sought action to fill up potholes on major and arterial roads and remove encroachments to stormwater drains, LiveLaw reported. The bench ordered the BBMP to submit a compliance report about the filling up of the potholes, along with photographs, before the next hearing. “BBMP is a statutory body and is under an obligation to maintain and repair the roads. The citizens have a right to have roads without potholes which creates a corresponding obligation on the authorities to maintain the roads and make it pothole free,” the bench observed, as per LiveLaw. 

The BBMP told the court that tenders have been issued for the resurfacing of roads, and the process will be completed by January 2023. The counsel for the BBMP also told the court that 2,500 kilometres of arterial roads are to be resurfaced in eight zones of Bengaluru, which it said will be complete by March 31. 

The BBMP has been pulled up several times in the past over the filling up of potholes. In April, a High Court bench led by then Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi slammed the civic body over incomplete pothole-filling work. "First you blame traffic, then you blame infrastructure, then the rains, for years together, and other agencies. What is left for you to blame, how many people will you go on passing the buck to? We just want the roads to be repaired and you are not getting the work started..." the bench had remarked.