The Public Works Department will begin the repair of 11 city roads from Friday. The primary job of the department is to make these roads motorable and focus will be on filling the potholes in these select city roads, said T.I. James, Executive Engineer, PWD Roads Division, Ernakulam.
Earlier, the government had urged the department to take up the road works and support the Kochi Corporation in making them motorable. The government had also announced that the road work was being implemented as a one-time affair considering the bad shape of city roads.
The government had also issued orders to the department last month for carrying out the work.
The roads that would be repaired by the PWD are the following: Pottakuzhy Road, Sreekandath Road, Azad Road, Kalathil Velayudhan Road, Karshaka Road, Market Road, Rameswaram Canal Road, Panampilly Nagar Road, Kochu Pally Road, Forty Feet Road and Janatha Road. The department will spend Rs. 1.5 crore for the repair works, he said.
The Kochi Mayor had informed the Department that the civic body would be repairing Hospital Road and the Durbar Hall Road and hence theses were omitted from the list. The PWD will carry out the road works using the 20mm chipping carpet method, one of the traditional ways of repairing the roads, Mr. James said.
In the second phase, the department has proposed to upgrade the standards of the road work and re-laying them with improved specifications. The department would be spending around Rs. 30 crore for the road work. The road levels have to be raised so as to drain away rainwater from them. The inadequate drainage system was one of the reasons for the city roads getting easily damaged, he said.
The Department proposes to carry out the road work with a five-year guarantee clause where the contractor will ensure the quality of the road work for the term and will carry out the necessary maintenance works at his expense.
The improved road laying methods like Bitumen Cement and Bitumen Concrete would be employed for the road work.
The work is expected to take off in December after completing the tendering process and is expected to be complete by April.
The department hopes to throw open these re-laid roads for traffic before the beginning of the next monsoon season, he said.
