Lack of transparency and failure to meet norms results in roads withering away at the slightest trace of rains, civil engineers and experts say.
“Earlier, ‘interior streets’ (roads in residential localities) would be re-laid once in three years, while bus route roads were re-laid once in five years,” said D.S. Sivasamy, former additional director of municipal administration.
“Senior bureaucrats used to give us specific instructions to personally supervise and monitor the work from scratch to finish,” he recalled, adding that engineering staff and Corporation officials would visit the site, taking along gadgets to measure thickness, depth and other parameters to ensure work was of the highest standard.
Damaged spots requiring patchwork would be identified and enumerated and a day later, tar and jelly from the central asphalt plant would be brought to the spot to complete the work. “Most potholes are now left in a damaged state till work on the entire stretch is taken up,” Mr. Sivasamy pointed out.
An important challenge is in ensuring 100 per cent use of funds for road laying or any other work. A senior civil engineer, a former member of the city’s engineering and contractors’ association, said there was no mechanism in place to educate residents about the nature of the work carried out by contractors.
There were a few exceptions with some contractors installing information boards about the work, money allotted, technical details and estimated date of completion, he said. A Corporation spokesperson said there was a drastic increase in the quality of works executed by them and it had come in for praise from many civic groups, especially in the expanded areas where difference was visible.
