Bengaluru: Civic apathy has forced Bengaluru citizens into helplessness. Efforts to book road engineers for negligence have gone nowhere. In fact, over the past month, traffic police, whose job it is to maintain traffic flow, were driven to fill up craters on the roads with civic officials not responding.
A traffic official clearing up road obstructions near the IT hubs of Bengaluru. Two others patching up dangerous craters on roads with jelly and sand to avert accidents. Two others simply cordoning off a bad stretch of road that would have been disastrous in peak hour traffic. It’s not their job at all, but over the past month, such candid pictures have popped up over Facebook groups of citizen activists. The discussion is about how the men in khaki have literally got down to tackle death traps on the streets, sometimes with their bare hands when civic officials look the other way.
Speaking to CNN-IBN MA Saleem, Additional Commissioner (Traffic) said “since it takes up time for civic agencies to take up works. So traffic cops do these short-term works to take immediate steps. We do it to reduce congestion”
On a regular basis, traffic police in different zones red—flag dangerous roads to their zonal officials of the Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike. Often, the complaints are ignored. Something that proved costly for the families of Stuti, Sunitha and Likhith Gowda, who lost their lives over the last month in pothole-related accidents. Angry citizens have pointed out that civic officials should be held accountable when it’s their negligence that led to accidents”
An aged person said “people who have taken the work should be booked. Not only construction, maintenance is also should be there. They should maintain for certain years and yes, booked for it”. Another person said “at the end of the day, they the ones getting profited out of this. And if they are not giving quality, they should be held responsible”.
A young mother and her nine year old son lost their lives after they tried to avoid a crater on the road and were hit by a passing truck. That happened in the last week of august, but when traffic police tried to book cases against the road engineer concerned, the national highways authority wrote to the state government raising objections to cases booked against its officials.
The Centre has cited section 28 of the NHAI Act, which says no suit can be taken up against any officer for anything which is done in good faith or for any damage caused by anything done in good faith.
28. Protection of action taken in good faith
(1) No suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding shall lie against the Authority or any member or officer or employee of the Authority for anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done under this Act or the rules or regulations made there under.
(2) No suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding shall lie against the Authority or any member or officer or employee of the Authority for any damage caused or likely to be caused by anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done under this Act or the rules or regulations made there under.
Reacting to this B Ramalinga Reddy, Bengaluru district-in-charge minister said “then who is responsible ? They are responsible. Definitely, they should be punished”
But while the government may say that, it is yet to take any action against Zonal engineers of the local corporation.. preferring instead, to never acknowledge where the buck stops
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