Bengaluru: Recent rains created havoc across the city with several areas flooding and major drains overflowing. But when residents contacted BBMP offices, they were told that the officials were busy with election duty and not available to attend to civic problems.
Mr Shanthanu Ghosh, a resident of Domlur, said, “Light drizzle leaves our streets flooded. When we contact the BBMP officials, we don’t get a proper response. They claim that most of the officials are on election duty. Otherwise, they make a false promise saying that officials will attend to our problems and keep us waiting. If attending to election duty is more important than addressing civic problems, then there is no bigger apathy than this,” he lamented.
Residents of Ulsoor Main Road said that they cleared the drains to let rainwater flow freely. “We did not get any response from BBMP officials when we contacted them. So, we cleared the drain ourselves. Now that the BBMP commissioner too has been transferred, there's no one to complain about our issues,” said Mr Kamal Antony, a resident of Channel Road in Ulsoor.
A senior BBMP officer accepted that many officials had been deputed to election work, but he claimed that there were enough other officials to take care of civic issues. “If people face problems, they should contact the call centre and we will direct the officials. They can even walk in to any BBMP office and if they find no one is attending to their problems, they can complain to us. We will take action against such errant officials. Our primary work is to solve civic issues and then comes other works.”
But several people complained that the BBMP call centre was not helpful.
