Civic body not to hold contractors responsible for flood-related road damage.
A stormwater drain constructed across the 1st Avenue and 1st Main Road Junction near Sastri Nagar in Adyar, without slopes on either side
for vehicles to pass over
Chennai: The Chennai corporation will not hold contractors responsible for road damage inflicted during this year’s northeast monsoon spell, officials said. The city received very heavy rainfall on November 23 and December 1 with the deluge contributing to severe road damage in the city.
Subsequently, Ripon Buildings hierarchy is once again faced with questions about who is responsible for fixing road damage in the city. Though the local body flirted with the option of fixing the liability on the road contractor itself during the early part of the monsoon, it has now come clean on its standing.
“We cannot hold contractors liable for road damages. Because, what Chennai suffered was a natural disaster,” an official said. “Prior to November 23, it was a different case. The rainfall was normal and the situation was not as serious as it turned out to be subsequently. If the rainfall level prior to that date had sustained over the city, then we would have been affixing the responsibility on the contractor,” a senior official commented.
In 2014, former joint commissioner (works) Dr Vijay Pingale chose to name and shame road contractors whose roads had not withstood the mandatory three-year time frame. “But in 2014, it did not rain as much. The rainfall of 2014 and 2015 cannot be and should not be compared,” an official added.
Contractors were only too eager to justify the corporation’s stance. “Bitumen roads even under dry conditions have a shorter lifetime, which is why the liability period was set at three years. Daily wear and tear is enough for bits of gravel to separate but when it rains like how it did in Chennai recently, not even international standards of road could have withstood the impact. So, it is not fair to pass the buck to the contractor,” a road contractor said, on condition of anonymity.
Highly placed sources said the cost of infrastructure repair work could run into huge amounts of money and an announcement is expected from the Chief Minister’s office regarding the different ‘packages’ of repair work, including storm water drains, roads, footpaths, bridges and others.
“So far, we have received around Rs 100 crore from the Central Government to carry out road repair works. We expect to receive more funds from the State and Central governments over a period of time,” a senior official said.
Over 2,000 roads, 30 bus routes ‘non-motorable’
Over 2,000 roads have suffered moderate to severe damages, officials told DC. “Till date, we have identified 2,000 interior roads and around 30 bus route roads to be in a non-motorable condition. The survey to assess road damage is still on and this number could rise eventually,” said a senior official.
Corporation sources told DC that they have initiated relaying and patchwork business on damaged roads despite there still being a few days to go in December before the monsoon season curfew on road work expires.
But officials clarified that they will refrain from carrying out patchwork on roads that had suffered around 60 per cent damage. “The cost to conduct patchwork on a road that has 60 per cent or more damage is more or less the same as it is to relay the entire stretch. This is the reason why we have held off doing patchwork on roads like Purasawalkam High Road and 18th Main Road in Anna Nagar to name a few. They will all be re-laid completely,” an official said.
Chennai Corporation prefers bitumen roads
The Chennai corporation has made it clear that it prefers using bitumen to concrete for its bus route roads project although officials toed the line of caution by adding they have not completely dropped plans of white-topping roads.
Earlier this year, the corporation ran into rough weather as the Madras high court pulled up the agency and asked it to explain why it had discreetly dropped plans to concretise bus route roads.
In March this year, the civic body earned a reprieve from the court after it cited the arrival of foreign delegates for the Global Investors Meet and the urgency the event necessitated as reason enough to press ahead with bitumen topping for its main roads.
But nine months on and with fresh plans to relay 164 bus route roads ready, the civic body still has no well-defined flowchart to implement its concrete road plans and as such is going ahead with using bitumen again.
“No city in the world has drastically changed over from bitumen to concrete because of the latter’s established weak points like for example how it allows for little percolation of water into soil and the fact that it assures a back-breaking ride for two-wheeler riders because of its hard surface,” said a senior official.
Also, when it comes to concrete roads, officials say logistical problems are aplenty. Commissioner Vikram Kapur had told the high court that getting its sister agencies on the same boat as the corporation was a troublesome task.
“Our priority when it comes to laying concrete roads is shifting of cables. Because once laid, we don’t want the road to be dug up but even otherwise digging through concrete requires more than just a crowbar,” an official said.
But the sheer number of cables found under the soil has often stifled concrete road projects, officials noted. “Besides, every agency wants separate ducts. EB does not want its cables to run alongside the Internet cables because there is some electromagnetic flux apparently. Metro water’s drinking water line and sewer line will have to be given separate ducts as well. On an average, we will have to provide five separate ducts for all the service lines.”
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( Source : deccan chronicle )
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