Bengaluru residents in Visvesvaraya Layout and Koramangala have begun repairing potholes and broken roads themselves after repeated complaints to civic authorities failed to produce action, spending between Rs 2,700 and Rs 10,000 on materials and road work.
Software engineer Uday S and his wife Ashwini P, residents of Sir M Visvesvaraya Layout in west Bengaluru, spent nearly Rs 10,000 on cold-mix asphalt and other materials after raising complaints about potholes for about three months. The couple carried out repairs at night, when traffic volumes were lower.
Uday told the Times of India that he had contacted officials and engineers associated with Bengaluru West City Corporation but eventually found it difficult to receive responses. He said the problem had continued even after the BDA layout was handed over to the Greater Bengaluru Authority in January. The Bangalore Development Authority had informed the corporation about the transfer, residents said.
The couple bought 10 bags of cold-mix asphalt, each weighing 10 kg and costing Rs 750. Including delivery, the bill came to nearly Rs 10,000. Uday said obtaining the material was itself difficult because some dealers asked for road contract documents or insisted on bulk purchases. He has since started repairing roads in Rajajinagar, where his parents live.
Uday, who travels from Kengeri to Whitefield three days a week, said he had seen commuters fall and suffer injuries on Bengaluru’s damaged roads. He said he was also affected by the condition of the roads. According to the report, the response to complaints was initially prompt when the commissioner monitored them through phone-in programmes, but residents found it increasingly difficult to contact officials after April.
In Koramangala, startup founder Siddharth Dialani spent Rs 2,700 to repair a damaged stretch of footpath on 8th Main in Koramangala 3rd Block. Dialani said he had complained through the Greater Bengaluru Authority’s WhatsApp helpline, the 1533 civic helpline and email to the chief commissioner. After waiting for about two months without seeing action on the ground, he arranged for the repair himself. His intervention subsequently circulated widely online.
The individual repairs have emerged alongside broader citizen activity focused on Bengaluru’s road conditions. Bengaluru Navanirmana Party founder Srikanth Narasimhan has conducted 25 reality-check walks under the party’s ‘Freedom from Bad Roads’ initiative across parts of south and east Bengaluru and said requests for similar inspections were coming from other parts of the city.
Narasimhan attributed the situation to what he described as the absence of elected local representatives and said the problem extended beyond damaged roads. He called the wider administrative issue “centralisation”. The residents’ repairs and civic inspections now place renewed attention on how complaints are transferred between agencies and how quickly road-safety problems receive an on-ground response.
