Amid allegations of duplication of road works, poor inter-departmental coordination and questions over the expenditure of more than Rs 50 billion (bn) on Bengaluru roads, a digital initiative conceived more than a decade ago has resurfaced as a possible answer to who did what, at what cost and on which road. The Road History Project is revisited by civic officials and activists seeking greater transparency in infrastructure delivery. The project was conceptualised by Manjunath Raju when he served as chairman of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Taxation and Finance Committee and has not been fully utilised as the public accountability platform intended. The 2014–15 BBMP budget described the concept as an online Geographical Information System platform that would assign every road a permanent identification number and record all related information. Raju, an engineer-turned-corporator, promoted data driven administration and backed the digital mapping of roads and associated civic assets. The initiative has acquired renewed relevance after Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda reprimanded Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) officials and engineers over the annual pothole filling exercise and cautioned them against the practice locally referred to as Hale Kallu, Hosa Billu. Under the project every road with drains, underground cables and other civic infrastructure was digitally mapped, creating a civic asset database. The platform was designed to track illegal road cutting by optical fibre companies and digging by parastatal agencies such as the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) and Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom), enabling action where permits were absent. Civic activists say the mapping could curb alleged collusion in which engineers and contractors were accused of raising multiple overlapping bills for asphalting the same stretches, citing instances such as Shantaveri Gopala Gowda Road. More than 13,000 km of roads were documented under the project but implementation gaps meant records were not fully leveraged to prevent repeated works and waste. Advocates maintain that if Road History is fully implemented it would record allocations, pothole reports and repairs, improving accountability across the city.