HOT TOPICS

SPOTLIGHT AGENCIES

Clearing mud and sand accumulated on the road

0

Written By srikanthml - 13 February, 2009

Bangalore Road Works Pollution Complaint Dust Cleanliness

Hi, In addition to the numerous problems we already have on road and road works in Bangalore. I wanted to bring attention to the huge amount of mud and sand scattered on all roads in Bangalore. It may seem the lowest in the priority of BBMP to clean it up. But clearly there are many issues related to this. Some of them i have observed

  • Dust - on the vehicles, on people using the road, on the house and in the house next to the road. Dust is bad to our health in many many ways. Eg Asthma, Dust Allergies, Red Eyes, respiratory problems etc
  • Dust covers the newly painted roads and within few days the paints are faded. This is adding cost to maintenance
  • Dust and Sand makes junctions slippery. I am sure there are accidents due this.
  • The entire city is dusty and in some way it adds to the stress in my opinion.

I do see there are few automatic cleaning vehicles which operate at will. I got an impression that the owner of the vehicle was trying to clean just because he needed to log his hours and less to do with clearing up the dust. Just wanted to bring this to general discussion and get a better understanding on what folks in praja think about this issue and if there has been any thought and actions put in this regards. Thanks

COMMENTS

In fact  I feel that if

rs - 13 February, 2009 - 09:10

In fact  I feel that if they build the roads all the way to the kerb it would go a long way in reducing the dust kicked up. For some reason oftentimes teh stop making the road around 1/2 a metre from the kerb, which results in that area becoming unusable and a lot of dust being kicked up.

Another problem I have, for which I dont really know what to do, is with constructions. Somehow people building a new house seem to believe that the footpath in front of their house belongs to them and can be used for storing material and even building a temporary hut for the construction workers/security. This is really annoying as usually makes the foorpath completely unusable and damages it - and usually they dont bother fixing it when the house is over. It also often means that they have violated the regulations as they have no space in their plot for building even a 6 x 6 x 8 foot house, but that is a different issue. 

Bangalore was never a dusty city thanks to its tree cover and independent houses. But now thats no longer the case with the massacre of trees and the large scale construction projects coming up all over the place.


Bad practices

idontspam - 13 February, 2009 - 09:46

The dust thing can be put down to bad construction practices of BBMP. The quality is nowhere near intl standards. I dont know if the current crop of engineers are either aware or even care.

Regarding usage of public property for personal use. In most countries you have to pay for using public space or for the authorities to clean up the area you mess up. Even when you are granted permission to use the sidewalk etc for your construction you have to make arrangements for a temporary sidewalk and amenities to be put up. If you mess up the costs are so high that the builders themselves clean up the streets after every truck that comes in and out with building material. They even clean the tyres of the trucks leaving the site so they dont have to pay for the truck messing up the entire city on its way.

Very important and neglected topic

Vinay - 13 February, 2009 - 09:54

This topic of mud and dust on the road is one of the most important, and sadly, most neglected topics. Since I came back to India, I have been suffering from Severe so-called "Seasonal Allergic Rhinitis". Though the pollen and other environmental factors also contribute to this, I believe that dust plays a major role in aggravating it.

It is really too bad, and this is the case almost everywhere in the city. Pollution and emission is one thing, but I tell you - there are several hundred kilos of dust all over the city, and this is contributing in a major way to asthma and other illnesses. Moreover, one cannot walk in the open for more than a few minutes without getting one's dress totally dirty and dusty. In Europe I was able to use a white jacket for several weeks at a stretch.

In my opinion, this topic is more important than it looks at first glance, and deserves a lot of attention.

I agree

Ravi_D - 13 February, 2009 - 11:52

Dust plays a big role in degrading quality of live in our city. See my thoughts in this previous post.

http://bangalore.praja.in/blog/ravi-d/2008/10/16/road-dust-in-bangalore

Ravi

What happened to the machines?

srinidhi - 13 February, 2009 - 16:25

There were a few machines/trucks that the BMP had procured which was supposed to do this cleaning automatically, atleast on the main roads..I had also seen one on the silver jublee park road..

wonder what happened..probably rusting in some shed due to lack of spare parts..

PRAJA.IN COMMENT GUIDELINES

Posting Guidelines apply for comments as well. No foul language, hate mongering or personal attacks. If criticizing third person or an authority, you must be fact based, as constructive as possible, and use gentle words. Avoid going off-topic no matter how nice your comment is. Moderators reserve the right to either edit or simply delete comments that don't meet these guidelines. If you are nice enough to realize you violated the guidelines, please save Moderators some time by editing and fixing yourself. Thanks!