The Coimbatore Corporation will shortly hold contractors accountable for the road and culvert works they have executed. According to senior officials, as a first step towards holding the contractors accountable, the civic body had issued notice to an engineer in the East Zone for a damaged in a newly constructed culvert near Kallimadai.
In a residential colony in the area, the newly laid culvert was damaged and therefore the Corporation had asked the engineer to explain how the damage happened and his/her role in supervising the quality of work.
Using that as a starting point, the senior officials said the Corporation would issue a circular asking all field engineers to look for damages to newly laid roads and culverts and engage the contractors to repair the damages at their cost.
Senior engineers said that in cases where the roads or culverts were constructed less than a year ago, the Corporation would invoke the liability clause in the agreement to direct the contractors concerned to take up the repair work.
In places where the period of liability had expired but the quality of construction was unsatisfactory, the Corporation would talk to the contractor to make them take up the work, as the Corporation had a hold over almost all contractors in earnest deposit money or pending bills or other means.
The engineers also said that once the Corporation issued circulars to field-level engineers, the latter would start enumerating the number of damaged roads and culverts, identify the contractor and begin work. The objective, senior officials, said was to make roads safer for travel and particularly culverts that were at junctions.
