Brushing aside the scorn over bad roads being heaped on the coalition government, Karnataka PWD Minister H.D. Revanna on Tuesday took a dig at former chief minister S.M. Krishna as well as Bangalore’s IT czars. The minister blamed the pathetic state of roads in the state, Bangalore in particular, on the heavy rainfall and ore-laden, over-loaded trucks. Referring to Krishna’s alleged complaint about bad roads to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Revanna said: ‘‘He is a senior politician and well-educated. I am still a political novice. I would like to know whether the roads were damaged in the last four months alone.’’ The minister wanted to know what the previous government had done to maintain the roads. ‘‘They were in power. Had I or my father Deve Gowda directed Krishna against improving the roads?’’ As for the package announced by Krishna, Revanna said only Rs 33 crore of the Rs 300-crore package had been released so far. To another question, Revanna shot back saying the government had not started repairing 28 roads in and around Bangalore to please the IT bigwigs. ‘‘Nandan Nilekani was the chairman of Bangalore Agenda Task Force for four years. What was he doing about the roads? He could have asked the previous government to take up road repairs.’’ It may be recalled that the IT community in the city had threatened to move out of the city if infrastructure problems were not addressed immediately. Promising to take up road repair works in the state soon after the rains subsided, Revanna reiterated the rains and heavy trucks were the primary reason for bad roads. ‘‘Because of the good fortune of this government and Chief Minister Dharam Singh, the state has been receiving good rains for the last four months.’’
