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INFRASTRUCTURE
Einstein said insanity is to keep these challenges were due to the design
integration efforts needed across multiple civic
doing the same thing over and over agencies: this was the first time that different
again, yet expecting a different result agencies were coming together to make
joint decisions, and that too, in a time-bound
each time. Our responses to our manner.
bad roads have been like this: not The lack of reliable institutional knowledge of
trying anything different, but simply the road assets owned by each civic agency, or
any records on such assets, made the challenges
repeating our past mistakes and a day-to-day fire-fighting exercise.
expecting different outcomes. We would suddenly discover (on road cutting)
a water main bringing in water to the entire
city or a high-tension power line that nobody
knew about. We would find missing sections of
sewer lines, properties that didn’t have sewage
connections but were letting them into the
storm water drains, and hundreds of instances
of crossed lines between power and telecom
and water supply, networks that were virtually
impossible to untangle. Given that each of these
was a ‘live’ connection, it was not possible to
simply cut the lines and create a more logical
network. All these needed to be factored real-
time into the design drawings, which needed
to be changed to reflect such new realities,
without which the contractor could not proceed
with coherence.
As a result of all this, the field and design
support to the contractor to enable good
execution, was unimaginably complex. The
learning process was also a factor, given the
pioneering nature of the project.
In 2015, the chief minister inaugurated the
first completed Tender SURE road and said, “I
was told that the footpaths are too wide, but
now when I see them after completion I am
convinced they need to be this wide. Pedestrians
need to be taken care of. I think this is the way
forward for Bengaluru. I am announcing 50
more roads under Tender SURE.”
The construction complexities during the first
roads, caused short term pain for citizens. The
provision of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure
was highly criticised initially.
The transformation of public opinion and
political buy-in has been dramatically positive
since the first road was completed and the
Church Street benefits were visible. Today, communities
demand Tender SURE quality of road and
footpath projects.
46 June-July ’18 / TrafficInfraTech www.trafficinfratech-com-500653.hostingersite.com
