BDA mulls IISc audit after social media flags poor roads in NPKL | Bengaluru News

Bengaluru: Bengaluru’s Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout roads have come under the scanner after a flood of complaints over shoddy work, prompting BDA commissioner P Manivannan to seek random quality checks by IISc experts and make third-party audit reports public.Commissioner P Manivannan responded favourably to suggestions on social media after photographs emerged showing the poor quality of asphalting.The commissioner also asked his team of officials to place the report of third-party audits of some of these roads in the public domain. “Can you give details of the third-party quality audit for these road works and their report for this particular road? Also, can you get random sampling of NPKL roads for quality from IISc? This can be discussed in the next review meeting,” Manivannan said in a post on X, in response to a flurry of posts.BDA officials agreed to place the subject for discussion at the next meeting to be convened to review the progress of NPKL project. BDA’s residential locality, planned over 4,040 acres, is shaping up between Mysuru and Magadi roads and has gained pace in recent months.Netizens have urged the organisation’s engineering team to show zero tolerance for poor quality in road building. One of them highlighted that uneven roads will be a long-term headache for BDA, as they will lead to water retention during rain, causing deterioration and cutting their lives short. Such roads also cast a higher financial burden on BDA for maintenance.Road tender transparency under lensSome posts, including one by NPKL Open Forum, a group of site allottees, suspected foul play in the award of road tenders, pointing to BDA officials not publicising the tenders enough to limit competition and ensure their favoured ones got the contract. Manivannan agreed to examine these complaints in an open session, under full public scrutiny, as to how they landed with just one or two contractors. The commissioner also asked his team to invite site allottees to the review meeting, promising to have his engineering team explain their actions.“Although three separate tenders were awarded for blocks 5, 6 & 7, a single contractor executed asphalt across all three blocks. The same contractor is now executing works in Blocks 1, 2, 3 & 4. Asphalting quality concerns have been repeatedly raised for over 2.5 years, yet there has been no visible improvement,” NPKL Open Forum said in a post on X. The forum has called for a review of soil stabilisation and asphalting quality in all nine blocks at NPKL.When asked about the road situation, a senior BDA official said: “A road has to be physically inspected by engineers to assess its quality, and in this case, the work itself is incomplete, with only one layer laid so far. Our engineers will inspect every road and submit quality reports. The internal deadline for completing the work is March 31. Once the work is finished, we will share the details with the public. Only then can people assess whether it meets standards, and their feedback will be fully taken into account. It is premature to make judgments now, while the work is still ongoing.”