When the residents of other localities complain about the poor state of roads, GHMC cries off saying it cannot take up road works during or before the monsoon.

But in this case, the GHMC has gone out of its way to make an exception.

Because of the heavy rainfall in early September, potholes dot several main roads in the Twin Cities.

A few days ago, the corporation Commissioner S P Singh had made it clear that the GHMC would take up restoration work on battered roads only from the next month.

But out at the Dharam Karan Road, work is progressing at a brisk pace, come rain or sunshine. About 30 GHMC workers are on the job which began a couple of days back. Officials say the work will be completed in about three days.

Speaking to Expresso, GHMC officials said that the recent rains have damaged more than 85 to 100 km of roads in different stretches of the Twin Cities.

The GHMC proposes to spend Rs 20 crore for recarpeting of BT roads that have been damaged.

In the GHMC limits, about 2,280 km are laid with BT roads, CC roads (2,030 km) and other roads (1,660 km). In fact, even after the blanket ban on road cuttings during the monsoon, utility departments and cable companies like HMWS&SB, the Central Power Distribution Company Limited of Andhra Pradesh (CPDCL), APTransco, BSNL, VSNL and some other private companies are on a cutting spree.

Many of the companies had taken permission from the GHMC to lay optic fibre cable lines by cutting roads but they are taking up the works now.

Distress calls from citizens in localities where roads have been cut are ignored by the GHMC officials.

The ditches turn into huge potholes are eventually filled with mud or stones by the hapless residents.

Nearly three years after it came into being, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is yet to take charge or be given the charge of the healthcare units in the erstwhile seven city municipal areas and the town municipal council and the 110 villages.

The H1N1 crisis seems to have brought the matter to the fore and as a temporary arrangement a chief secretary level meeting recently decided that Bangalore Urban District Health Officer shall work under the instructions of the BBMP wherever their jurisdictions overlap, official sources said. An order on the same has been issued by the Commissioner Health and Family Welfare, it is said.

BBMP Chief Health Officer Dr Gayathri said, “We have been asking that the units that are due to us, be handed over to us.” In Bangalore Urban District, Dr Shivaram (the previous DHO who recently got transferred to Chikmagalur) said that the matter was broached before the higher ups many times during his two-year stint.

Health and Family Welfare Commissioner P N Srinivasachary acknowledged that the expectations of theNational Urban Health Mission (NUHM) on the lines of the National Rural Health Mission had kept the matter pending.

To recall, NUHM was in the news during first term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Former union minister for Health and Family Ambumani Ramadoss had in fact mentioned it when he was in Bangalore for the Nimhans convocation in January this year.

Hitches

The non-integration of health services in BBMP has meant confusion in the tabulation of data on immunisation among others, said officials, They (officials) pointed out that pulse polio numbers of BBMP, which has a huge immigration population, are just the core area (former BMP limits) number.

The remaining goes under Bangalore Urban district bracket.

The house-to-house survey for H1N1 prevalence may be another such example, the recent order notwithstanding.

On Monday, BBMP CHO Dr Gayathri said that the house-to-house survey was just a two-day affair last week, coinciding with the visit of the team from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, Delhi.

Health and Family Welfare Director Usha Vasunkar, however, noted that the survey is an ongoing programme.

The services of the preventive and community medicine departments of all the medical colleges are being sourced for the task, she said.

Planner view

Healthcare is already a listed service function of an urban local body at the level of a city corporation, pointed out a resource person working on the urban reforms under JNNURM.

Run of numbers

Bangalore Urban district’s run of health care units reads as three 100-bed general hospitals— K R Puram, Yelahanka and Anekal; 72 Primary Health Centres (sixbedded), five Community Health Centres; 19 India Population Project units; and 3 Urban Health Centres.