What ought to have brought pats on the back for the Coimbatore Corporation have instead turned into raps on knuckles.
The civic body to earn good will had decided that roads damaged in the recent rains would be repaired and asked the five zonal officials to prepare list of roads damaged, the number of patch works to be carried out and the money required for the work.
Based on the list prepared, the officials prepared the following estimates — Rs. 10 lakh for roads in East Zone, Rs. 20 lakh for North Zone, Rs. 30 lakh for Central Zone, Rs. 20 lakh for West Zone and Rs. 10 lakh for South Zone.
But then majority of the roads on which the patchwork was proposed and work was going on was constructed in the last year-end-half or so, said K. Durairaj, activist and Lok Satta member.
He said that the corporation constructed the Onapalayam-Vadavalli Road, Seeranaickenpalayam Road, Panamarathur Road, Shivalaya Theatre Road, Kavundampalayam-Maniakaram palayam Road, KNG Pudur Road and many others only in the recent past but it had now taken up patchwork.
This spoke about the quality of road work, Mr. Durairaj said and sought action against the contractor who constructed such poor quality roads and the engineers who cleared the contractors’ bill.
It was only the tax payers’ money that was being wasted, he pointed out and sought accountability and transparency in development works.
Coimbatore Consumer Cause secretary K. Kathirmathiyon said that the Corporation make accountable the road construction contractors for the quality of the roads for two to three years.
In fact, the civic body should withhold a portion of the bill and pay the dues only if the roads were good after a two or three year term. If not, it should also blacklist the contractors. And, the corporation should also hold the engineers responsible for they were the ones who checked the quality of roads.
