On Thursday, elected representatives in the Tamil Nadu Assembly took up the issue of Chennai’s roads, particularly their state after the spell of rains, early monsoon.
Pointing out that only Chennai roads were of inferior quality, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader A. Soundararajan said the lack of co-ordination among government agencies when it came to digging up roads worsened the situation.
Claiming the concrete roads only compounded the problem, he said the government must continue with ‘easy to maintain’ bitumen roads.
CPI member M. Arumugam urged the government to act fast during monsoons as roads in cities, particularly in Chennai, were bad.
A. Ganesh Kumar, a Pattali Makkal Katchi MLA, asked the government to get minimum guarantee from contractors for a minimum of five years. He suggested that contractors responsible for bad roads should be terminated.
Manithaneya Makkal Katchi leader M.H. Jawahirullah said roads in the city, instead of being the showpiece, were demeaning it.
Puthiya Tamizhagam leader K. Krishnasamy said city roads had not lasted even a spell of rain. This would have a negative impact on the investment climate and tourism industry.
In his reply to the special calling attention motion, S.P. Velumani, minister for municipal administration and rural development, squarely blamed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) for the bad roads.
Admitting there was damage in 552 places on 155 roads, measuring 1.63 lakh sq.m., the minister blamed the previous DMK rule for reducing the maintenance contract to one year and claimed that 133 of the damaged roads were laid during the DMK’s time in 2010-11. Now, the government had reverted to the three-year maintenance contract, he said, adding contractors had been asked to repair roads in 77 places themselves.
Of the 747 interior roads, the contractors had been asked to do the work on 31 roads. The rest of the roads were being repaired at a cost of Rs 3.54 crore, the minister said.
AAP submits list of bad roadsThe Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday submitted a list of bad roads to the Chennai Corporation, demanding restoration of the stretches.
The list included East Mada Street in Mylapore, 18th Main Road in Anna Nagar, Bajanai Koil Street in Choolaimedu, Perambur Barracks Road, Venkatnarayana Road, Whites Road and Arcot Road and Broadway.
The party collected signatures from 2,000 residents who participated in a campaign last week. “Residents have demanded better quality roads. We request the Corporation to penalise the contractors responsible for bad roads,” said AAP State Campaign Committee member Jayaram Venkatesan.
“We also requested the Corporation commissioner to permit us to visit the three laboratories commissioned for testing the quality of roads. Residents want to know how it works,” said Chandra Mohan, founding member AAP in Tamil Nadu.
