It is common to hear people grumble about roadsides in their localities being dug time and again for one work or the other. And on Friday, the Madras High Court Bench here too shared their feelings during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition related to digging of roads.
A Division Bench of Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice V.M. Velumani agreed with the petitioner’s counsel that most of the roads were dug, relaid and dug up again either to lay drinking water pipelines, create underground sewage facility, fix optic fibre cables or for some other work.
Taking a dig at the officials of various departments and their contractors for not working in unison, Mr.Justice Ramasubramanian said, in a lighter vein, that once a group of labourers were found digging a road and another group of labourers behind them were relaying it.
“A curious onlooker asked them why were they unnecessarily digging the road and also relaying it simultaneously. One of the labourers replied that the local body had given the contract of digging the road, laying drinking water pipelines and relaying the road to three different contractors.
“The contracts signed by them state that every contractor should complete the work assigned to him on time without shifting the blame on the other contractor. Therefore, though the person responsible for laying pipelines was absent on that day, the other two contractors were doing their job religiously,” the judge said.
The Division Bench disposed of the PIL petition filed by a resident of Kayalpattinam in Tuticorin district after recording the submission of the local body that it would not dig the roads once again.
