Mysore/Mysuru: The official machinery, the elected representatives and various Sub-Committees are leaving no stone unturned to celebrate this Dasara in a grand manner after a gap of 2 years. But in their enthusiasm to attract more and more tourists, they are ignoring one crucial aspect of the city infrastructure — pothole-filled roads.

As the 2020 and 2021 Dasara were low-key ones, none of the roads received a major facelift and only patchwork was done. But a couple of roads got relaid and asphalted when PM Narendra Modi visited the city in June this year. Over Rs. 10 crore was spent to make few roads new so that the VVIP convoy passed smoothly. After that, no work was taken up and there is hardly a month to go for Dasara’s inauguration and no one is speaking about the pothole-ridden roads while the common man is put to hardship daily as he is forced to have a bumpy ride.

Patchworks this time too?

The Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has been saying that roads will be developed with the CM’s special grants for this Dasara and months have passed and yet there is no sign of road repairs now. Looking at the way things are going, this year too, Mysuru city roads are  destined to receive only patchworks, that too just 10 days before the festival.

Forget the arterial roads in the Central Business District. Even the so-called ‘Raja Marga’ too is ridden with potholes and mind you, this is the road on which the Vijayadashami procession —projected to the hilt as the pride of Mysuru — moves along with caparisoned elephants, Golden Howdah-carrying Abhimanyu, cultural troupes and tableaux.

In many places, like in Tilaknagar, there is no semblance of a road and it is a worse situation when it rains where deep potholes store rainwater. At the junction of Dhanvantri Road and Sayyaji Rao Road (again a ‘Raja Marga’) sewage flows like a river by the side of Raghulal Medicals and this stretch has not been repaired for years.

Shockingly, the road re-laying work taken up when the PM visited Mysuru has chipped off at many places near the City Bus Stand, holding a mirror to the quality of work. Less spoken is better when it comes to the roads of residential areas. There are grand plans to take the Dasara celebrations to each house in each Ward.

The Rs. 10 lakh grants given to each Ward is not even sufficient to do road patchworks, forget complete asphalting, say Corporators. “We are neither here nor there. This financial mismanagement will prove costly where people are cursing us,” said a Corporator. Crores of rupees have been spent on the road repair works in Chamaraja Constituency and were initiated by MLA L. Nagendra. But the execution of the projects is filled with flaws where the main contractor has handed over the works to the sub-contractor and the sub-contractor has given the works to smaller contractors after measuring the roads in metres.