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Upgrade of 7 Roads will have to wait

<p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:rgb(105, 105, 105); font-family:arial; font-size:11px; line-height:1.6em">Cruising on world class roads in the central business district (CBD) will have to wait. The cash strapped BBMP, which received INR 100 crore to kickstart road building under the TenderSURE project, has diverted funds to pay its contractors! The fund diversion came to light on Monday when principal secretary (urban development) P N Srinivasachary reviewed the project.</span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">The SURE in the project name stands for Specification for Urban Road Execution. It&#39;s a public private initiative to plan and design standards for roads. Delhi was the first to use these standards. The plan by the state government was to upgrade 45 roads under the scheme. In state budget 2012-13, the government had announced INR 200 crore for TenderSURE. It had released INR 100 crore on 30.03.2012, to BBMP, and asked the civic agency to mobilise the remaining INR 100 crore on its own.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">The secretary was shocked to know that BBMP diverted funds entrusted to it for executing a specific project. The state government has now asked BBMP to mobilise the amount. The implementation of the TenderSURE project has also been delayed due to the diversion.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Soil testing should have commenced a fortnight ago at seven major roads in the CBD, but the contractor has not initiated work as BBMP is yet to make the five per cent advance payment mentioned in the tender document. Design and shifting of utilities like water, drainage, pipeline and power lines, etc. have also been affected. The roads are St Mark&#39;s Road, Residency Road, Richmond Road, Cunningham Road, Vittal Mallya Road, Commissariat Road, and Museum Road.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, Srinivasachary said: &quot;I reviewed the project status and I was informed by the engineers that the allotted fund is being utilised elsewhere and so the project has been hit. It is unfortunate that BBMP spent the amount for other purposes. I was informed that INR 100 crore was used to make payments towards pending bills of contractors.&quot;</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">He said, &quot;INR 200 crore was earmarked to implement the TenderSURE project. The state government had allotted its share of INR 100 crore to BBMP. And BBMP is responsible for chipping in with INR 100 crore as its share. Unless BBMP makes some provisions, it will be very difficult for them to handle the situation.&quot;</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">BBMP&#39;s superintending engineer K T Nagaraj, who attended the meeting with the principal secretary, said: &quot;The government had released INR 100 crore towards its share, but the chief accounts officer has utilised the same for other works. Because of this, the project is delayed.&quot; An official at the chief accounts office said, &quot;It is possible that BBMP has given away the money to clear pending bills of contractors.&quot;</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Source-On Request</span></span></span></p>