Residents on T.V. Swamy Road, R.S. Puram, can heave a sigh of relief as it will not be a model road.
The Coimbatore Corporation has decided to drop the ₹44 crore project as it feels too many works are under way in R.S. Puram, that their progress is not as scheduled, the roads across the locality are damaged and that the residents are angry, says a Corporation officer familiar with the development. It is yet to make it official, though.
The Corporation has been talking since 2015 about developing D.B. Road and T.V. Swamy Road into model roads, where utility lines will have ducts, pedestrian pathways will be free of encroachments, junctions will be developed for easy movement of vehicles and pedestrians and vehicle movement will be streamlined.
The Corporation started the work in 2017 on D.B. Road. But by August that year, the Corporation saw the work stopped midway as the contractor cited insufficient funds.
This left the southern half of the D.B. Road damaged with pits, dug earth, and narrow carriageway.
After addressing the issues that arose then and floating fresh tenders, when the Corporation wanted to restart the work, it saw itself facing a tough task – how to go about executing the model road work along with the 24x7 drinking water supply project as both involved digging roads.
For, by then the Corporation had decided to start the water project first in R.S. Puram, on a pilot basis before expanding it to rest of the old city area.
After charting a course of action, when the Corporation organised the ground-breaking ceremony, it faced a new task – that of replacing the old underground sewer line on D.B. Road.
Sources familiar with the development say that Municipal Administration Minister S.P. Velumani asked the Corporation officials to replace the old pipelines with new ones after the residents told him that the pipelines were at least 40 years old, not wide enough to carry sewage, were getting choked and that it would be difficult to replace the pipelines after the model road project.
Though this meant more time to start the model road work, the Corporation agreed to do it and reworked the course of action to complete the underground sewer work, then the water pipeline work and then take up the model road project.
On the other roads in R.S. Puram, the Corporation went about digging roads to lay the new water supply lines. This led to a situation where several roads in R.S. Puram were barricaded and dug for work, or damaged after the completion of work and saw reduced carriageway because of dug earth and dumped materials eating away road margins.
This has been the situation in R.S. Puram for over a year now, says a resident complaining, “at one point in time it became even difficult to walk on roads.”
A few months ago, when the South-West Monsoon and then the North-East Monsoon were active, the condition of the roads went from bad to worse. Roads turned slushy, pits dug for works were filled with water and minor accidents almost became an everyday occurrence, recalls the resident.
On the west of R.S. Puram, on Thadagam Road, the choked and overflowing drains only added to the residents’ woes.
It was during this period that the Corporation went slow in executing the 24x7 drinking water project. Officials familiar with the delay say that four months the work progressed at a snail’s pace as the Corporation “was told to delay execution.”
The delay has resulted in the Corporation still continuing to lay main distribution pipelines in some places when it should have completed the work by giving house service connections. In a few other places, it is yet to begin giving house service connections.
The delay in executing the work meant R.S. Puram residents having to put up with damaged roads for longer than necessary. Even today, more than a year after the Corporation started digging roads, they, the residents, continue to suffer, rues a Bashyakaralu Road resident.
The condition of the roads forced the residents to convey their displeasure to the Corporation and the powers that be. The result: the Corporation has decided to complete the water pipeline work by the end of this month or at least by the middle of March.
Meanwhile, the Corporation also rebuilt three of the damaged roads – Periasamy Road, Venkatasamy Road and Ponnurangam Road, to assuage the residents.
And, on D.B. Road the Corporation has decided to focus on completing the model road work in the southern stretch of the road for 400m, show it to the residents before proceeding with work on the rest of the road.
This is to ensure that the northern half of D.B. Road is not dug again, at least for now, the officials say.
Once it completed the water pipeline work, the Corporation plans to rebuild all damaged roads in R.S. Puram and therefore has decided to drop the model road project on T.V. Swamy Road as it does not want to open another front to draw the residents’ ire, the officials add.
