Fine sand that gets accumulated on roads has been swept to mounds near the Park Gate Junction on Nanjappa Road. But the passage of vehicles in the area is dissolving the mounds by pushing the sand back on to the road, giving a tough time to motorists who struggle for balance, especially two-wheeler riders.
What is true of the junction is also true of many other junctions in the city. And, also of roads with medians and barricades, where the dust gathers on the roadsides to eat away the motorable space.
The streets that the Coimbatore Corporation manages are no exception to this.
Sources in the Corporation say that it is the civic body’s job to clean the roads. It is in charge of maintaining roads over 3,000 km. To clean the road, the civic body engages conservancy workers, who manually do the job.
But the work does not happen as often as it ought to because of shortage of workers, admits an official. The last time the civic body took an effort to clean the roads was sometime in October 2015 before the start of the North-East Monsoon.
Sources say that the civic body tried to mechanise the road cleaning job but that was more than 10 years ago. During the then Mayor T. Malaravan’s tenure, the civic body bought a machine to clean the road.
The corporation used it for sometime. Again it bought a few more machines at the time of the World Classical Tamil Conference but stopped using those for reason best known to officials.
An officer says that the road cleaning machines are lying idle for minor repairs. Another officer says the civic body decided against using the machines because they were diesel guzzlers. Now, the civic body has no machines in working condition
Corporation authorities say that for a few months there was a move to buy new machines but they decided against it after looking at the past efforts.
Now, there is a move to outsource the work to clean the roads but that will be done after the elections.
