Two of us met with Shri JaiPrasad of BBMP.  Some good information that I gathered on this was -

o Of course they are aware of IRC standards and he himself is on one of the IRC bodies. However, IRC is just a guideline and there is no compulsion to use it.

o As we all know, it has rarely been followed.

o Very difficult to retrospectively apply the standards to done roads. However, he agrees very much that new layouts and new roads should be built to the requisite standards.

o BBMP (and I think BDA) do not have a seperate standards body which specifices standards for Bangalore roads. They are trying to come out with a handbook, but a cursory look at it and it is what I suspected. Heavily focussed on the material and construction aspect, with little or no focus on the geometric design aspect.

o One of the major problems with the IRC docs, is that it is a series of docs over decades, with different committees coming up with different standards at different points of time. At times there is overlap, and a given aspect of road will be strewn over many such documents. Basically one needs to read through N number of documents and synthesize it, a herculean task and should not be expected for every PWD engineer to do it. THe good thing is IRC themselves recognize the problem and are trying to bring a comprehensive revision which will have much lesser booklets/documents to cover all aspects.

Now the really positive aspect of the meeting

o We went through the document we are trying to create, which will be a single reference to all aspects of geometry of road design.

o He expressed keen interest in the document  and said it would be  usefull.

o He said it is a very good thing, and he definitely thinks it could be usefull to BBMP and IRC. Since he is one of the committe members in the IRC revision process, this could come in handy.

o once we are done with the complete stuff, he is open to consider us conducting a workshop with BBMP engineers and basically apprise them of it.

I think it is great that he is open and keen on improvement. I dont think we should go about only criticizing and asking why this has not happened so far etc. We should see where we can add value to the current system and then go ahead and do it.

THis is probably a very good opportunity for all of us to directly influence the standards and make sure it is comprehensive enough so that we dont get into issues later of pedestrian crossings, road divider walls too high or too low, roads not being pedestrian freindly, lane driving etc etc. If you can volunteer great, but at least do go through it and come up with your criticisms, and your points which you think should be added

Suhas

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 IRC is just a guideline and there is no compulsion to use it.

Yes but nothing prevents somebody from actually adopting it. Why does everything have to be forced down ones throat? 

If you can volunteer great, but at least do go through it and come up with your criticisms, and your points which you think should be added

Appreciate your effort in not only putting up the doc but reaching out to people who can further it. I will make efforts to provide you my views on it.

§§§ Tweetenator

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Appreciate all your efforts. Also good to know BBMP has such engineers under their umbrella.

Ravi

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Good work, Suhas!

I hope you are also including what goes below the road surface - the point I had made during the discussions at the last PRAJA meet.

Further, perhaps you should seek to involve civil engg students of some local reputed college in the exercise.

Muralidhar Rao

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Dear Mr. Suhas,
'City Connect', Chennai, have already prepared such document and are implementing for a pilot project at Lattice Bridge road.
If you let me know your e-mail i.d. I can send you some contacts.
K.V.Pathy
(pathykv@gmail.com)

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Murali sir,

There is a section on utility lines which would cover all the lines below the surface. I hope that is what you are refering too, and not "under the surface" dealings. Am very much looking for civil engg/arch students and if you have contacts will be great.

IDS,

Thanks. Honestly, the IRC is documents is not easily usable as well, but having said that, I dont think there has been much of an attempt either.

pathykv,

have sent you an email. it is srkulhalli@yahoo.com

Suhas

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At srkulhalli: How is the PWD related to BBMP or vice versa? Am trying to update stuff on BBMP gyan and came across an interesting article that mentioned PWD being responsible for building violations than BBMP. Has BBMP outsourced building and road design aspects  (design, build, inspections etc.) to PWD?
Standards evolve over time, may get bloated etc. based on the state-of-the-art in research. It is for the municipality and state govt. (for areas w/o municipalities) to have expert(s) (in-house or outsourced each time there is a revision) come up with the enforceable document - this may follow the standard in-toto (seldom done) or may modify suitable sections to better suit local conditions. The enforcing authority should have a division to deal with these issues - the same division would deal with setting construction standards, inspections, fining violations etc. To illustrate better: A municipality in Rajasthan would modify the road design to better deal with abrasive sand and high temperatures whereas one in J&K will modify it to better withstand snow/ice/cold temperature and one in Karnataka may modify to deal with heaving clays; these modifications would be based on local research/past history/past experience. Surely Mr. Jai Prasad knows it - he may be indirectly expressing lack of - expertise or staff or enforcing powers or funds. Or, maybe it is passing the buck or just plain apathy in the BBMP. Suspect that sustained continuation of the former reasons has lead to latter state.

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