Bengaluru’s pothole crisis is most visible on the roads connecting its technology belt, but the deeper problem is not simply damaged asphalt. On the Gunjur-Doddakaneli Road, which links Carmelaram to the city’s expanding technology corridor, residents and motorists are confronting deep pits, dust, open sewage and stretches that become slippery during rain. The result is a daily transport system in which a routine 20-minute commute can take an hour, while school buses, two-wheelers and cars negotiate roads that are barely motorable.
The condition of these roads shows how Bengaluru’s urban expansion has outpaced the systems responsible for connecting new neighbourhoods to jobs, schools and major transport corridors. Residential areas have grown around the technology belt, bringing heavier traffic and greater dependence on road links such as Gunjur-Doddakaneli, Hosa Road and the Sarjapur Road-Dommasandra-Gunjur-Varthur-Balagere corridor. Yet the supporting infrastructure has not kept pace with that growth.
For commuters, the failure is experienced at street level. Rainwater conceals the depth of potholes and turns damaged surfaces into slush. When the weather clears, dust clouds reduce visibility and make travel uncomfortable. Two-wheeler riders face a particular risk because sudden braking, uneven surfaces and slippery patches can result in a loss of balance. Cars and buses must slow down or manoeuvre around craters, increasing conflict between vehicles and extending travel times.
The safety implications are serious, although individual crashes cannot automatically be attributed to road conditions without investigation. In August 2026, 32-year-old Medha Akarsh died after falling from a two-wheeler on a slushy, damaged stretch of Anantnagar Main Road in Electronics City. Police said preliminary findings pointed to sudden braking after a car ahead stopped, while also acknowledging that the road was in poor condition. The precise role of the damaged surface remained under investigation.
In September 2025, 20-year-old college student Dhanushree died after being run over by a truck near Budigere Cross. Residents alleged that she had been thrown from her scooter while negotiating a pothole, but police had not established whether the pothole contributed to the accident. These cases underline the difficulty of separating immediate crash causes from the wider road environment in which riders are forced to make sudden decisions.
Historical figures indicate that this is not a recent or isolated concern. Official figures cited in a Times of India report in February 2022 recorded at least 13 deaths in 12 accidents specifically attributed to potholes within Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike limits over five years. Seven of those deaths occurred in 2021 and three in 2020. The figures do not describe the current condition of every road, but they establish that potholes have long been treated as a road-safety issue rather than merely a maintenance inconvenience.
The scale of the current challenge is also visible in Bengaluru’s road surveys. An AI-based assessment covering 2,493.5 kilometres across seven divisions and 72 wards under Bengaluru North City Corporation identified 14,393 potholes. The survey used real-time dashcam images to map road conditions and prioritise repairs. It classified 1,426.8 kilometres of roads as being in good condition and another 607.1 kilometres as having minor surface defects. It also recorded localised damage, utility-related excavation and unpaved surfaces.
The distribution of potholes suggests that the problem is not confined to one technology corridor or one isolated road. Byatarayanapura recorded 5,964 potholes, followed by Sarvagnanagar with 2,359 and Pulikeshi Nagar with 1,357. These figures describe a citywide maintenance burden. They also show why a complaint-driven repair system can struggle: by the time one stretch is repaired, another may have deteriorated or been damaged by excavation, drainage failure or heavy traffic.
The civic corporation has said the survey data will help shift road maintenance towards technology-based planning. That is an important administrative change, but mapping damage is only one part of the road-management chain. A database can identify where potholes are located and help prioritise interventions. It cannot, by itself, ensure that repairs are durable, that drains function, that utility cuts are restored properly or that different agencies coordinate before a road is reopened.
Those institutional gaps are visible in the causes of deterioration described in the report. Poor drainage allows water to collect and seep into the road structure. Repeated excavation for water, sewage and other utilities can weaken the surface when restoration is inadequate. Heavy traffic then accelerates the failure. When these factors overlap, patching the visible pothole may address the immediate hazard without resolving the conditions that produced it.
A cavity on Kanteerava Studio Main Road demonstrated the more extreme consequences of water and structural failure. After two days of heavy rain, a section of the road gave way and exposed a hollow passage beneath the carriageway. Water had eroded soil and road structure as it moved towards a manhole. Officials began filling the cavity with broken concrete blocks and construction debris while traffic continued to pass the damaged section. Residents said the road had deteriorated over several years, with utility cuts and inadequate restoration leaving it vulnerable.
The response to Bengaluru’s road crisis therefore has two time horizons. The first is immediate safety. Authorities have ordered gravel to be laid on damaged stretches, and white-topping work has begun on Gunjur CDP Road. Such measures can make roads more passable, but residents remain sceptical about whether temporary repairs will survive further rain, traffic and utility work.
The second horizon is permanent infrastructure planning. Bengaluru West City Corporation commissioner Rajendra KV said funds had been approved for asphalting under the Special Infrastructure Project. The work had been complicated by a proposal from Bengaluru Smart Infrastructure Limited to undertake white-topping, but the commissioner said the civic body would proceed with asphalting after the rains subsided. The choice between resurfacing methods is consequently linked to project timing, funding and coordination rather than only to engineering preference.
The state government has acknowledged that immediate repairs cannot wait for larger projects. During an inspection of the Sarjapur Road-Dommasandra-Gunjur-Varthur-Balagere corridor on September 30, Greater Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda directed officials to accelerate road and infrastructure works. He called for pothole repairs, attention to waterlogging and roadside pits, debris removal and the use of gravel where necessary to make roads motorable.
Gowda also directed officials to examine drainage improvements, junction modifications and coordination among agencies responsible for roads, electricity, water supply and Metro infrastructure. At the Dommasandra Circle-Varthur stretch, he questioned why available road space could not be cleared while land acquisition issues were being resolved. He also flagged alleged encroachments along the Gunjur-Dommasandra corridor and asked officials to examine transformers obstructing traffic and road development.
These instructions point to the administrative complexity behind what appears to be a simple pothole problem. A road may be controlled, excavated or affected by several agencies, while land acquisition, encroachments, utility infrastructure and major transport projects can delay the creation of a continuous carriageway. Without clear responsibility for reinstatement and maintenance, the road becomes the place where unresolved institutional decisions accumulate.
Funding accountability adds another layer. On September 5, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya sought a white paper on the Rs 5,500 crore the state government had reportedly spent on Bengaluru roadworks and pothole management over three years. He questioned why roads remained riddled with potholes and demanded a detailed account before further spending. His demand was a political challenge and does not independently establish financial irregularity, but it brings attention to the gap between reported expenditure and what residents see on the ground.
That gap is central to the city’s infrastructure question. The issue is not only how much money is spent, but whether expenditure produces roads that remain safe and functional through rain, utility work and heavy traffic. A road that is repeatedly repaired but repeatedly fails creates costs for residents through lost time, vehicle damage, unsafe travel and longer routes. It also makes public investment difficult to evaluate from the user’s perspective.
Bengaluru’s technology corridor illustrates the wider challenge of urban growth without integrated infrastructure delivery. Employment hubs attract workers and families, while residential development expands along roads that were not necessarily designed for current traffic volumes. When drainage, sewage, electricity, road construction and Metro planning proceed on separate timelines, the resulting network may contain new buildings and major economic activity but weak everyday connections.
The evidence supplied in the report confirms the scale of road damage, the risks faced by commuters, the role of drainage and utility works, and the government’s stated response. It does not establish that every recent accident was caused by potholes, nor does the reported expenditure figure by itself demonstrate misuse of funds. The developments that now require monitoring are whether immediate repairs make the affected roads safely passable, whether permanent works begin after the rains, how utility cuts are restored and whether the city’s new road-survey data changes the way maintenance is planned and funded.
