Quality of roads in Chennai becomes a political issue with the Oppn parties slamming civic body
The corporations (except Chennai) and municipalities maintain a total road length of 21,412.08 km of which 4400.32 km are cement concrete roads. (PHoto: DC)
Chennai: State government and various civic bodies have spent so far over Rs 3,400 crore on roads and infrastructure in the past two years, but most roads are battered and non-motorable. Despite shoddy work, contractors are yet to be penalised. In fact, the quality of roads in Chennai has now become a political issue with the opposition slamming the city corporation for potholes.
According to official sources, for the year 2013-2014, Rs 500 crore has been provided under the Chennai Mega City Development Mission and Rs 750.00 crore for the Integrated Urban Development Mission to improve infrastructure, particularly roads.
During the past three years, Rs 1,665.80 crore has been infused for development of urban infrastructure; of the 5,598 works undertaken, 4,932 are completed, and the balance works are in various stages of implementation, sources said.
“Government has been boasting of spending crores of rupees on infrastructure, but the bad roads reflect poor execution,” said former Chennai mayor M. Subramanian. To my little knowledge, I have not seen any contractor penalised or any action taken on the officials concerned, he said.
“Our party leader Amma has laid special emphasis on the quality and durability of urban roads and advocated technological developments. Hence, changes in the existing contract norms were made to ensure quality roads,” said minister for municipal administration and rural development S. P. Velumani.
All roads that were recently laid have a contract life, and if there are roads that have failed to withstand the promised life, the contractor who completed the road will be taken to task. If the errant contractor fails to repair the battered roads free of cost, stern action would be taken against him, the minister said.
“My friends from Bombay and Delhi always talk ill about Chennai traffic and road congestion and it hurts when someone talks bad about your city. Roads in ECR and OMR has improved but in the city, they are yet to improve,” said N. Balaji, a team leader in a software company near Tidal Park.
Meanwhile, DC CORRESPONDENT
Chennai, Nov. 6
Plastic roads, world class white top roads, M95 grade concrete roads and quick setting roads were some of the concepts boasted by the city corporation authorities, but the recent rains have burst the bubble and road engineering in the state is now under the scanner.
“We have asked the top brass of urban local bodies including the Chennai Corporation, to examine a new design change and also to look into project execution of infra projects,” a top government official told DC.
The concept of road durability is also under re-examination. At present, road durability is fixed from one to three years and now we plan to work on the policy that will enhance road life from 3 to 5 years or even more. Under the new policy, the onus will be more on the contractor as the maintenance of the roads for five or seven years will be fixed on the contractors, the official said, adding that project cost estimate will not be a problem.
“The traffic situation has turned from bad to worse and government needs a fresh perspective. Further, the engineers overseeing road projects need to be booked in case of poor road works,” opines civic activist R Govindaraj, joint general secretary, Exnora.
“The municipal administration department has made it clear that road design has to change from estimate driven to design driven. But a common problem field engineers face is that the new roads are not given adequate time to settle. Whenever traffic is opened within a few hours of re-laying roads, the quality takes a beat,” opined a senior municipal engineer in Kancheepuram district.
( Source : dc )
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