Dig up roads, end up in legal tangle

People who leave roads in disrepair will be taken to task

Cutting up a Corporation road, or for that matter any public road, for personal purposes, mostly water connections, and forgetting its proper restoration can land one in trouble, if District Collector Biju Prabhakar’s words are any indication.

Already, procedures are being set in motion to take to task a contractor and a house-owner who showed negligence in restoring a road after digging it up for water connection in the city.

The trend of haphazard cutting and digging up of roads, coupled with the tendency to leave the road to its fate after one’s purpose is served, has prompted the Collector to think of initiating legal procedures, including revenue recovery, against those indulging in such practices.

“If someone digs up a road and does not restore it properly within a stipulated timeframe, we will initiate legal steps, including revenue recovery to extract restoration charges from the person,” the Collector said, adding that a notice would be served in this regard to a contractor and a house-owner shortly.

The current practice was to dig up the road without approvals of authorities, including the Public Utility Committee.

The process is carried out in a crude manner with pickaxes, and then the trench is randomly covered, sometimes even by pulling over slabs over it, making the road extremely dangerous for motorists, particularly two-wheeler riders.

And the rest of the road, gradually, collapses and form huge potholes.

“As of now, anyone can do anything and get away with it. That will not be allowed anymore. There is a list of guidelines and we will ensure strict compliance,” Mr. Prabhakar told The Hindu on Sunday.

The guidelines included acquiring permission from the Corporation assistant executive engineer or PWD or NH division assistant executive engineers, depending on the road that was to be dug up; employing an accredited Kerala Water Authority contractor for the job; using an asphalt cutter; and restoring the road with a 1:2:4 concrete mixture.

“Violations can result in the water connection being terminated for one year and the contractor’s licence being terminated, apart from legal proceedings against both the contractor and the house owner for whom the work was done,” Mr. Prabhakar said.