Despite the monsoon being inactive, city roads continue to deteriorate, and the Chennai Corporation has estimated that there are roughly 25,000 potholes that need to be repaired.
While the Corporation will only re-lay roads after the end of the monsoon, for now, it has allocated over ₹20 crore for carrying out pothole repair work in the 15 zones. But residents complain that potholes on many stretches are not being repaired properly. Residents and motorists demand temporary repair work of the roads to prevent accidents. Motorists complain about frequent accidents due to potholes on the Red Cross Road in Egmore.
Lack of supervision
Former Corporation Councillor S. Mangala Raj said the poor quality of roads was due to the lack of monitoring by assistant engineers in the 200 wards during the relaying of roads.
In the last four years, the Corporation has given permission to lay 1,500 km of optic-fibre cables, 50 km for Tangedco and 300 km for Metrowater infrastructure, said an official, suggesting that it could be the reason for the bad condition of roads. The Corporation will be spending the ₹20 crore, collected from these agencies for causing damage to the roads, to repair the potholes. Residents’ associations have requested the civic body to use cold mix to repair potholes in accident-prone locations before the commencement of road relaying. “We cannot prepare hot mix during rains. It will affect the quality,” said a civic official.
Corporation officials said work on re-laying of 175 bus routes would begin only after Pongal. About 60 bus route roads have been identified for complete relaying and 115 bus routes have been identified for patchwork. The maintenance of 33,280 interior roads has been plagued by inadequate manpower, said sources.
