Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

HC moved for 'safe, motorable' roads

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI Nov. 27. A city advocate has moved the Madras High Court by a public interest litigation petition, complaining about the bad road conditions, and seeking constitution of an expert committee for evolving a long-term action plan for making all the major city roads "safe and motorable" .

The First Bench of the High Court comprising the Chief Justice, B. Subhashan Reddy and Justice C. Nagappan, ordered issue of notice to the Secretary PWD and the Chennai Corporation Commissioner, on an interim plea made in the PIL, seeking a direction to the authorities to place before the Court, a viable action plan regarding repairs to all the major roads, streets and lanes, in consultation with experts, within a time schedule.

The petitioner, C. Lakshmi Narain, submitted that the north-east monsoon, which set in last month, had caused havoc to several city roads. Adding further woe was the digging of streets by service agencies, which led to potholes, endangering two wheeler riders.

Pointing to the bad road conditions, and the heavy water logging in many areas in the city and the suburbs, he contended that the government departments did not work as a cohesive unit for ensuring planned development of the road and there was no proper drainage, despite the city having many waterways.

Even according to the admission of the Chennai Corporation Commissioner, 60 per cent of the roads were affected by the rain. Even newly repaired areas were full of potholes due to improper use of materials, without adhering to the norms.

The PIL contended that instead of taking emergency steps for improving the roads, the authorities have been issuing statements blaming others and making it a political issue. While awarding tenders for road works, there were several allegations of favouritism. At the Council meetings, instead of concentrating on civic problems, the elected councillors wasted time in acrimonious political debates.

The officials in charge of checking the roads should be held accountable if the road works were not executed properly by a contractor who enjoyed political patronage.

Explaining how the potholes should be filled by laying a uniform base, and how compacting and surface smoothening should be done, even while providing for slopes and using the correct materials in the correct texture and quantity, Mr. Narain said premature breakdown of the roads was mainly due to wrong methods used and employing of defective size aggregates, overheating, insufficient heating of the mixture. The road quality in Bangalore and Hyderabad had improved considerably over the years, he noted.

However, the condition of East Coast Road, built to international specifications by a private company proved that quality was not necessarily a casualty in the State, he added.

The petition wanted a direction to the authorities to entrust the repair work of all arterial roads only to reputed companies and to include a clause in the tender conditions for repairs to other roads, streets entrusted to small time contractors, that they deposit the full value of the contract amount as EMD before grant of the contract, which was liable to be attached, if the roads were damaged within five years of completion.

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