Government asks police to assess road damage in Bengaluru, Hoysala dash cams to identify potholes

Bengaluru: With the condition of roads in the city deteriorating, the state government has asked for an independent report to assess the extent of damage of the streets by roping in the police. 

Police will identify potholes by using footage from cameras installed under the Safe City project and dash cameras mounted on Hoysala police patrol cars. They will analyse the footage at the police command centre and share the findings with a committee headed by Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh, who conducted a review of Bengaluru-related projects recently. 

Raman Gupta, Additional Commissioner of Police (Administration), has been tasked with submitting the report. 

Besides the police, the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has also been asked to share the data once all its 5,000-plus buses are fitted with cameras. The government believes that use of AI-fitted cameras and analytics will aid the identification of the city’s civic problems. 

BBMP Special Commissioner Harish Kumar has been appointed the nodal officer for coordinating with information received from various sources. The government also directed BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath to come up with a standard operating procedure (SOP), including a plan of action, to fill up potholes by assigning responsibilities. 

These instructions were given as the government was not happy with the answers given by the BBMP with respect to maintaining roads. The civic body reportedly informed the meeting that the roads are being attended to regularly, that a new software (Raste Gundi Gamana) has been developed to identify potholes and that its plan to asphalt 1,732 km of roads is under different stages of implementation. 

The civic body has been drawing flak on social media for the deterioration of roads with many users posting pictures of potholes. While the civic body started asphalting some roads in the last few days of dry weather, it has not received much success in the temporary filling up of potholes as wet mix aggregates do not have a long shelf life.