When the Dharam Singh-led Congress-JD(S) coalition government was in power in Karnataka, JD(S) leader H D Deve Gowda was the stumbling block to infrastructure development in Bangalore. Now that Deve Gowda’s son is in power, it is the Congress-dominated Bangalore City Corporation (BCC) that has taken over that role.

Road improvement work in ‘Tech City’ has come to a grinding halt after the BCC raised questions on various fronts and contractors have refused to take up project execution at existing rates.

Bangalore’s Mayor Mumtaz Begum, a Congress representative, has questioned the carrying-out of civil works and asphalting on 19 roads identified as being crucial to the information technology and biotechnology sector.

While it was her own party’s chief minister, Dharam Singh, who had sanctioned the improvement of these 19 IT/BT roads—following pressure from IT/BT companies, in September 2005—Mumtaz Begum recently called for a halt to work on these roads and argued that there were other roads that needed immediate attention.

‘‘Why are you wasting the tax-payers’ money on good roads when there are other priorities? We cannot afford to spend crores on these good stretches just because they lead to the IT/BT corridor,’’ the Mayor—currently touring China to study infrastructure—said while ordering a halt to the asphalting work. It finally took Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’ intervention to ensure that work resumed.

But then, the contractors took up from where the Mayor left off. When drainage clearance and footpath maintenance were completed last week, BCC-engaged contractors went up in arms demanding better contract rates to asphalt the 19 roads. With two separate committees—one set up by the High Court and the second an IT/BT sector empowered committee—monitoring the quality of the roads being laid in Bangalore, contractors are hard-pressed to ensure the quality of the roads.

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