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There have been repeated announcements on roads, flyovers and metro corridors in Bengaluru, but the deadline passes quietly without any results
Officials have been asked to deal with Bengaluru’s pothole crisis within four to six months. symbolic image
From pothole repairs and white-topping works to Metro expansion projects, Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda has wasted little time in meeting deadlines since taking charge of the Greater Bengaluru Development portfolio earlier this month.
The minister’s message is clear: the era of endless delays must end.
But in a city where infrastructure projects routinely exceed deadlines by months and often years, the bigger question is whether these targets are realistic and, more importantly, whether they can actually be met.
The latest deadline came this week when gouda Directed Greater Bengaluru Authority officials to complete all ongoing white-topping works within six months, pulled up engineers for repeated delays and questioned why projects were slowing down even after massive payments had been made.
“Why have you built a white-painted road where an elevated flyover is being built? So that you can demolish it again later and waste that money?” The minister asked the officials during the review meeting.
Officials told him that at present a little more than 50 per cent of the sanctioned white-topping works have been completed. Another 300 km of roads are to be constructed, the areas of which are yet to be identified.
The six-month deadline is one of several announced by Gowda in recent weeks.
Officials have been asked to deal with Bengaluru’s pothole crisis within four to six months. The Greater Bengaluru Authority has been given eight months to asphalt wards the roads using the Rs 2,000 crore grant earmarked for the purpose.
The minister has also set his sights on the Namma Metro – perhaps the clearest example of a Bengaluru project where the deadline has become a moving target.
After a review meeting last week, Gowda announced that the elevated section pink line The stretch between Kalena Agrahara and Tavarekere will open by August 15, while the underground section up to Nagawara will be completed by March 2027.
The trial run on the Blue Line between KR Pura, Marathahalli and HSR Layout is scheduled for October this year. Airport connectivity through Hebbal is expected by June 2027.
Yet, even while announcing the deadline, the minister himself acknowledged BMRCL’s “notorious” history of missing deadlines and said delays of one or two years could no longer be routinely accepted.
For a city that has grown accustomed to changing deadlines and missed targets, the announcements have been met with equal measures of optimism and skepticism.
This admission highlights perhaps Bengaluru’s biggest infrastructure problem – deadlines are announced but rarely enforced.
Urban administration expert RK Mishra believes the minister’s intervention is welcome, but says merely setting a deadline will not solve Bengaluru’s infrastructure problems.
“The encouraging thing is that ministers are actually walking on the streets, visiting projects and trying to understand where the bottlenecks are. The intention is right,” Mishra told News18.
According to him, many delays are not due to engineering challenges or lack of funds but due to bureaucratic inertia, poor coordination and absence of accountability.
“It is extremely important to set deadlines. But just setting deadlines does not solve problems. They should also be accompanied by regular monitoring. If you set a deadline of six months and return only after five months, there are chances that the work will not be completed on time,” he said.
Mishra argues that weekly dashboards, monthly reviews and quarterly evaluations will be necessary if the government is serious about ensuring projects are delivered on schedule.
The minister was part of a recent meeting chaired by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with urban experts, where priorities for Bengaluru’s first 100 days were discussed. Monitoring and project review figured prominently in those discussions.
When it comes to metro projects, Mishra believes the Blue Line deadline can be achieved – but only if the government actively intervenes to resolve coordination failures between agencies.
“There are no major structural issues or pending approvals in the ORR Metro corridor. In many cases, delays occur because interdepartmental coordination breaks down,” he said.
He recalled a recent instance where Metro work was delayed because utility shifting was not completed by another agency.
“These issues remain stuck at lower levels and often do not move forward. For a department, this may not be a priority, but for metro construction, it becomes a major hurdle. Regular monitoring can ensure that these issues are resolved quickly,” he said.
Not everyone agrees that setting a deadline automatically leads to delivery.
An urban infrastructure expert, who did not want to be named, said the real test for Krishna Byre Gowda will be whether he uses the powers available under the Greater Bengaluru Authority to remove the inter-departmental bottlenecks that have long plagued the city.
“The whole purpose of creating the Greater Bengaluru Authority was to eliminate inter-departmental coordination issues. On paper, it is an extremely powerful mechanism. But in reality no one has used those powers so far. The previous administration had the power, but it was never fully utilized,” the expert told News18.
According to him, Gowda’s reviews and timelines will make a difference only if they are backed by accountability among agencies.
“Right now, what we are seeing is that ministers are talking to engineers and reviewing projects. The next step is to ensure that every department involved in the project is held accountable. Metro delays, road delays and civil works are often not caused by one agency, but by multiple departments failing to coordinate. If the GBA works the way it is intended, the minister can bring all these agencies to the table and ensure that decisions are taken quickly. This is where the real value of the authority lies,” the expert said.
The expert said if Gowda is successful in using the GBA as a coordination and accountability platform rather than just a review mechanism, it could signal a significant change in the way Bengaluru’s infrastructure projects are executed.
Yet another expert pointed out that public works projects are far more complex than the simple targets announced during review meetings.
“It reminds us of those pothole deadlines that governments regularly announce – fix 10,000 potholes this week, clean up other potholes next week. Those targets sound good, but the reality is that targets keep changing. The number of potholes keeps changing, court cases come up, a contractor may face problems, equipment may not arrive on time, or workers may not arrive on time,” the expert told News18. The shortage may suddenly disrupt the work.”
Citing repeated delays in the Bengaluru Metro’s Pink Line, which was expected to open earlier but has now been pushed to August, the expert said project timelines are often affected by factors that are difficult to predict.
The expert said, “If a project depends heavily on workers from a particular sector and elections or other events take them away, this should ideally be factored into the planning. Good project management anticipates such disruptions. Also, public infrastructure projects involve multiple agencies, contractors and approvals. It is like a game of chess where every piece is moving at the same time.”
According to him, although inefficiency and poor planning contribute to delays, not every missed deadline is a result of inefficiency.
“There are a lot of moving parts in public works. That’s why deadlines should be seen as targets rather than guarantees. What matters is whether there is constant monitoring and quick intervention when problems arise,” he said.
There have been repeated announcements on roads, flyovers and metro corridors in Bengaluru, but the deadline passes quietly without any results. Governments changed, ministers changed, officials changed, but the delays continued.
Therefore, Gowda’s challenge is not just to set new deadlines. This is making sure there are consequences when those deadlines are missed.
Now the deadline has been prepared. whether civil machinery of bengaluru Ultimately, the big test is to maintain the pace.
About the author
Rohini Swamy, Associate Editor, News18, has been a journalist in the television and digital space for almost two decades. She covers South India for News18’s digital platform. She has worked before also…read more
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