Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)
Mangaluru, Feb 14: It has been observed in most of the cases that the city corporation here begins to dig the concreted road within days of laying them. The people, who get happy at the sight of smooth, concreted stretches of the road, get dismayed when they see the roads getting cut to attend to some repairs. Precious taxpayers' money literally goes down the drain in such cases.
For example, the concreted Kankanady Junction Road between Fr Muller Hospital to Koti Chennaya Circle (Nandigudda) was built by spending Rs 4.5 crore. This road was supposed to be developed as a model road. However, this road has become nightmarish for road users as road cutting has been going on this road since long.
A citizen, A Rajaram, had filed RTI petition relating to this road. It has been revealed that after laying the road, the corporation has spent nearly Rs 13 lac towards rigging holes on this road at 20 places. This figure relates to November last year, and this 1.4 km road was further cut at three places thereafter. Rajaram feels that tax payers money is being drained away in this way because of the lack of planning on the part of the engineers. This is the story everywhere where concreting has been done.
Patchwork at the drilled portion of the road many a time does not properly get set with the road, as a result of which rough patches are left out. These patches impact the strength of the road, which results in the vehicles, particularly their wheels, suffering damages. Moreover there is the danger of accidents. Before starting concreting work of any road, the engineers by now must have understood that electricity, underground drainage, water pipelines and other underground cables should be shifted before concreting work is taken up. As they neglected to attend to this, water, sewage etc can be seen oozing out of different holes on the road now and then. The corporation should study whether this pattern of cutting the road in case of problems is followed all over India.
An official of the engineering section of the city corporation here revealed that main water supply line passes below the said road and therefore, road breaking becomes necessary in case of problems. He confessed that because of funds problem, the pipeline had not been shifted beforehand. This pipeline being very old, it is bound to develop problems, and road cutting becomes imminent.
It may be recalled that in 2013, activists here had opposed the felling of trees for the widening of this road stretch. They also had undertaken online campaigning to save the 'last boulevard of Mangaluru'. Going by the way this road is developing problems, their concern now appears to have been genuine and legitimate.