Pending bills for contractors delay relaying of battered roads in Chennai
Corporation has placed barricades in the middle of Indira Nagar 3rd Avenue to cover an open manhole. - DC
Chennai: Sir, first palaya billu, appuram road repairu (pay our old bills, only then roads will be repaired) is what contractors taking up road works in Greater Chennai say. Government engineers who are always busy for the reasons best known to them are now spending sleepless nights hearing this mantra from the cartel of contractors. With bad roads making headlines, the city corporation and municipal engineers are now feeling the heat and are pampering the contractors to speed up the repair of battered roads.
However, the contractors are hitting back, arguing that their previous bills were pending.And the recent showcause notices, with the corporation pulling up seven contractors in the city for laying sub-standard roads had also not gone down well among them. “The quality of a road is directly proportional to three factors, first the cost of it, second, the ‘cut’ involved, third, the supervision by engineers,” explains a contractor who has been associated with the city corporation for the past 13 years.
“I have stopped participating in the corporation tenders for the past four months and feel relieved without the stress. And now, with ‘heavy cuts’ the repair works are peanuts. Now, I am under financial constraints, leave me,” is the upshot of a telephone conversation between a contractor and a corporation ward engineer to which this correspondent was a witness.
There are a few engineers, who wanted to make a quick buck and went overboard, which affected the quality of the work. There are also some who are bypassing the Ripon building babus. The recent deputation of engineers from the PWD had also affected the administration of roads, Ripon building insiders admit.A former chief engineer, who is aware of the situation, said that the corporation recently acquired new engineers from the PWD for the top posts.
PWD engineers handle top-budget projects and their approach towards city projects had not gone well with the quality of the roads. Local bodies should always nurture their own in-house resources for top technical posts, people who can then handle the situation ‘adjusting’ various factors.
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