Residents could be seeing the last of potholed roads in the Boulevard area, one of the city’s most preferred stroll zones, as the surface is being re-laid.
Under the project, uneven stretches of the black-topped road will give way to a smoother surface, while the antiquated water supply system in the Boulevard is also being replaced, said officials of the Public Works Department.
The initiative stems from a budget proposal made by Chief Minister N. Rangasamy that 37 roads had been identified for relaying. These include major roads such as Mahatma Gandhi Road, Jawaharlal Nehru Street, Ambour Salai, Gingee Salai, Mission Street, Sardar Vallabhai Patel Salai, Romain Rolland Street and Lal Bahadur Shastri Street (Bussy Street).
According to PWD officials, the work is expected to be completed by January-end.
“The work was necessitated by the digging up of the roads for the replacement of the old water supply grid,” said J. Jayakumar, executive engineer, Public Health Division, Public Works Division. Around 20 per cent of Phase I of the work has been completed.
“At many places, workers had to dig through the road to give water connections to households. These are now being re-laid in uniform thickness, as part of road maintenance work,” he said. Intermittent rains affected the work a bit.
Road stretches with concrete and paver blocks are not being taken up for re-laying.
The PWD is only focusing on relaying bituminous roads. Concrete and paver block roads would be taken up in the next phase, Mr. Jayakumar said.
In the first stage, the roads are laid with bituminous macadam. After completing the work on the water supply grid, the roads would be layered with semi-dense bituminous concrete, PWD officials said.
Stretches of Ambour Salai and Gingee Salai have been closed for traffic.
New connectionsThe 35-year-old water supply grid had rusted, and water pressure came down, PWD officials said. The new grid uses ductile iron pipes. Work on the new grid is almost complete, and connections have to be given now to individual houses.
Officials from the department have been assessing the ownership of connections to check illegal ownership. Residents could approach the PWD to apply for new connections, officials said.