100 rupees for spotting a pothole, anyone?
Travelling to pune via Bangalore, last week. Saw a Bangalore newspaper in the seatpocket. Browsing through it and found this interesting news there. Bangalore municipal authorities are fed about about the complaints about pot holes on the roads.They have introduced a cash incentive scheme to the citizens. For a starter, they have specified certain roads on which if a citizens spots a pothole of a specified dimension and more, they can inform the authorities through a dedicated phone line. It was introduced a few days ago and the authorities are proclaiming that they have not disbursed any incentive so far!Emboldened with the euphoria, they are busy adding more streets to the incentive scheme.
I found the bold initiative very commendable.It requires courage of a rare kind, rarely exhibited in public life and that too in a low end job like maintenance of roads.I credit the municipal commissioner or whoever it is who took this decision and made it public.I can visualise citizens going about with inch tapes in their hands to measure and report about the pot holes. Definitely citizens living on those streets would have done this first. I can see senior citizens who are all the time writing to readers mail of dailys, having a new past time.
No compalint has so far qualified for an incentive needs to be weighed with caution; if it is really what it purports to be, then it is laudable and we wish more and more streets are added to this list and not only cover the entire city of Bangalore, but like a virus spread to other cities as well.It could also be that the dimensions of the hole are way off the mark of most of the pothole measurements, then it needs to be reworked.
whatever it is, i welcome any scheme which coopts the citizen and makes it worth the whole to participate in governance
posted by vasukumar @ 9:00 PM
3 Comments:
I am really taking the news reports with a pinch of salt these days. The hype about bird flu and now negative result about the virus leaves me wondering whether to rely on news items.
Why I am saying this is I am very vary about this 'pothole' business.
When there are whole stretch of roads which are just 'kallu' and 'mannu' where will you measure the potholes.
I am not trying to be cynical. I have seen the impt. roads like bannergatta road and saying this. I only wish to see better roads and more roads in Bangalore.
Get your point bluejagger.But the silver lining in the 'pothole business' of bangalore is this. The stakeholders are made a participant in progress.Such a bold initiative is necessary for the simple reason that the situation is extremely serious. The municipality is doing this to bring back some credibility and hope to the people(like you) that it means business. It requires courage i can tell you.
I agree there are several roads with huge pot holes and there are huge stretches of potholes where you have to search for the road. The newsitem says they are throwing it open to public select roads and depending on their capability to respond, will do so for more roads. Progress happens like this, provided of course the initiative is out of deep commitment and the wherewithal to carry it sustained over a long period of time.
But atleast somebody is travelling the first step in the long road.
so this scheme works!!Hurrah.Keep me posted of developments,ok?
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