Thiruvananthapuram: PWD minister G. Sudhakaran has defended the organising of the day-long Engineers Conference on Vijayadasami as it “is the most auspicious day to start an initiative”.
At the conference, he asked the assistant engineers to keep a register exclusively for “potholes” in their section. Sudhakaran who addressed 1040 out of 1135 engineers at the University Senate Hall coinciding with the second engineers’ conference, claimed that despite being a holiday, there was 94 percent attendance.
Sudhakaran alleged that during the previous UDF Government’s tenure, it had completely ignored the PWD manual. In his freewheeling address, Sudhakaran said sarcastically that though the department had appointed a new chief engineer exclusively for road maintenance, he was in the dark as to what he was supposed to do.
“Unfortunately since the last five years, the engineer’s brains are frozen. Despite the Government sanctioning Rs 300 crore towards road maintenance, not even five percent has been utilized due to rains. I wonder what the role of superintending engineers in the department is”, said Sudhakaran.
He said what the department needed were engineers who would make a difference to the future.
He urged the superintending engineers to supervise works in at least five districts where they should examine, report and correct the existing flaws of the department there.
Replying to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s comments on ‘cold in place’ recycling technology, Sudhakaran informed that Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia was known for getting rains throughout the year. But it had developed a technology where road works were not affected by the rains. The Chief Minister has asked PWD minister to send a delegation there first to study their technique.
A senior PWD official told DC that initially an engineers’ level delegation would visit Kuala Lumpur and later Government to Government level discussions would take place.
“The Chief Minister has asked that the issue be studied as Kerala’s roads are notorious for getting potholes during heavy rains. But there are some roads which withstand heavy rainfall here in Kerala. That is because the raw materials used are different and contractors are to be blamed for this”, added Sudhakaran.
