Citizens Must Follow 100% of Building Rules. Government Roads Follow Less Than 10% of the Government's Own Standards
Introduction
Anyone who has built a house in Bengaluru knows the process. You need a sanctioned plan. Your setbacks, height and floor area must match the rules. Without the required approvals you can face notices, penalties and trouble in getting your certificates and connections.
The message from the government to the common man is clear: follow the rules 100%.
Now look at the roads built by the same government.
Two different standards
For buildings, there are bye-laws, plan sanction, inspections and an occupancy certificate. For roads, the equivalent rule book is the set of guidelines published by the Indian Roads Congress (IRC). They cover lane width, markings, signs, footpaths, junction design and drainage.
Infra Kaizen studied 30 roads in Bengaluru. Not even 10% of the IRC conditions are followed on them. This includes SM Krishna Road, the 10.7 km road between Mysore Road and Magadi Road that opened in 2026.
Citizen: 100% compliance is expected, and it is checked.
Government road: less than 10% compliance, and nobody checks.
The problem for the common man
- Safety. As per Ministry of Road Transport and Highways data, more than 1.7 lakh people died in road accidents in India in 2023. Road design is one of the reasons behind accidents.
- Time. Badly designed junctions and missing markings cause jams every day.
- Money. A road that is built wrongly has to be repaired again and again, with the taxpayer's money.
- Trust. People lose respect for rules when the rule-maker does not follow its own rules.
Root cause
We broke the problem into small parts:
- No compulsory rule for the government's own work. For a building, approval is compulsory. For a road, we have not found any step that makes IRC compliance compulsory before the design is approved.
- No measurement. Nobody gives a new road an IRC score, so nobody knows how far it is from the standard.
- No consequence. A citizen who breaks a building rule pays for it. When a road ignores IRC, nobody is held responsible.
- Not enough training. You cannot follow a standard that you have not studied.
So the root cause is a design and system failure. It is not shortage of money, and it is not the citizen.
Solutions
1. Make a rule for the government also. Every public road project should meet at least 80% of the applicable IRC guidelines before the design is finalised. Write this into the tender and the contract.
2. Train and certify. Engineers who design and approve roads should be trained on IRC codes.
3. Independent audit. A team that is not the contractor and not the approving officer should check the finished road against IRC.
4. Public score. Publish the IRC score of each new road, the same way building violations are recorded.
5. Improve steadily. Nobody expects all roads to be fixed tomorrow morning. Apply the rule to every new and re-laid road. Review the results every year and correct the process, as PDCA teaches. In 10 to 15 years, Bengaluru's roads will be at a different level.
The principle is simple. Whoever makes the rule should follow it first. If the common man can follow 100% of the norms for one house, the government can follow at least 80% of its own standards for a public road.