Sewage diversion delays lake work
Top BDA officials and Bengaluru incharge Minister Ramalinga Reddy visited on Monday (Nov 17) the Mestripalya Lake site after members of the Mestripalya Lake Coordination Committee expressed their deep concern to the officials at the slow paced progress of the lake restoration project work.
Ajay Reddy, coordinator of the Mestripalya Lake Coordination Committee expressed concern that the issues between BDA and the lake contractor have not reached a consensus for overcoming certain challenging issues that had cropped up recently. He cited this as one of the probable reasons for the unexpected delay in the restoration project.
Shyam Bhat, Commissioner of BDA and Naik, BDA Chief Engineer, elucidated to the committee members that the sewage diversion plan was the cause for work being delayed. They further elaborated that the plan has now been approved and the contractor had no more grounds on which he could delay the work further.
After conferring with different viewpoints for the causes of the delay, Ramalinga Reddy entreated the BDA officials to prepare a schedule for the work with timed deadlines. The stated deadlines would help the committee members to monitor the progress of the work without any ambiguities. BDA officials have agreed to prepare and handover a bar chart of the future work deadlines to the committee within the next week.
Later, speaking to City Kemp, Ajay Reddy stressed that “the residents of Koramangala had been eagerly waiting for the project to be completed in time for the monsoons, this year. However, that is not to be and they would have to set their hopes instead, for the next monsoons”.
Furthermore, some of the committee members are under the belief that the officials and the concerned contractor need to be held accountable for such delays in implementing projects. They expressed that future projects need to incorporate a system where accountability should be an important part and parcel of the ‘project agenda’.
