New Tender SURE Roads to be Wider: Siddaramaiah.

Tender SURE (Specifications for Urban Road Execution) roads that will be executed hereafter will be broader and have narrower footpaths, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said recently. The ongoing works have been criticised for their narrow roads.

Ahead of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections, the CM, accompanied by ministers Ramalinga Reddy, K J George and Krishna Byre Gowda, Congress MLAs, MLCs, and senior officials from the BBMP, BWSSB and BMRCL made rounds of the city recently.

Siddaramaiah inspected at least eight different places during the exercise that lasted for over three hours. He first inspected the TenderSURE works at St Marks Road and Cunningham Road. 'I have instructed the officials to increase the width of the road and narrow down the footpath,' he said.

When asked about complaints about St Mark’s Road being too narrow, the CM said they cannot do anything about it. 'We cannot cut down the footpath space now. Also, if we reduce that space, we will need to cut down trees,' he said.

On the delay in completing TenderSURE roads, Siddaramaiah blamed the BJP, which had been ruling the BBMP till recently. 'We had released funds from the state government for TenderSURE roads, which they (BJP) diverted for other purposes,” he alleged. “We have now released funds and asked officials to complete work as soon as possible,' he said.

Weekly Rounds: The CM said that from now on, he will go on weekly rounds of the city. The next inspection will be on May 23. When reminded of his earlier promise of conducting city rounds every month, Siddaramaiah said there had been a BBMP Council in place earlier. Now, with the administrator in charge, he wanted to check the progress himself, he said. When asked if he would continue the weekly rounds even after the BBMP elections, the CM said he may not do so.

Babu's Plea: Senior IPS officer and Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) M A Saleem was seen convincing patients to move aside during the CM's visit to Bowring Hospital.

THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS