As the Erode Corporation and State Highways pay little attention on carrying out repair and maintenance works, a majority of the roads in the town have suffered heavy damage and require immediate repairs.
Most of the inner roads and some of the arterial roads are riddled with potholes, leaving the motorists to face difficulties. As potholes remain unattended for months together in many busy stretches, they have turned out to be death traps for motorists.
“Most of the inner roads in the town remain badly damaged due to the implementation of the underground drainage (UGD) project. The roads that are not damaged by the UGD contractors also have huge potholes due to the long absence of maintenance works,” S. Praveen, a resident in NGGO Colony here says.
For instance, the Thirunagar colony road which connects the bus stand with Salem main road has huge craters and it has not witnessed any repairs for the past several months. Residents and shopkeepers in the area have been fighting for the last two months to get the deathtraps repaired but their concerns have been ignored. “We took the matter to the notice of authorities concerned on several occasions urging them to carry out repairs. The problem is yet to be addressed,” S. Balasubramanian, a shopkeeper, says.
Most of the roads including the stretches that come under the control of State highways department have similar problems and require immediate repairs.
“Travelling on a bike in the town is becoming more and more difficult and stressful due to potholes. We have to zigzag around the potholes every time,” says S. Gunasekaran, who works as a collection agent at an insurance firm.
When contacted, authorities said that they were aware of the bad condition of the roads and prepared proposals to carry out repairs. Some of the works had already been approved by the government and taken up for implementation, they added.
