Builders of bad roads to be debarred

Ban will be for 6 months; work of contractors to be monitored real-time

Contractors refused to relay Anna Pillai Street in Geroge Town in the absence of a quality control manual. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam

Road work carried out by contractors will be under the scanner on a real-time basis. The Chennai Corporation Council on Thursday put in place a system guided by a new quality control manual to monitor road works in real time to ensure that errant contractors will be penalised.

This new system will screen binder content, temperature, sieve analysis, camber, density and thickness pertaining to relaying of a road.

Two trained personnel will oversee the process at the contractors’ hot mix plant to study the parameters specified in the manual. Engineers will use smartphones to monitor the entire process and award negative points for shoddy work. An accumulation of 500 ‘negative points’ will prevent the contractor from participating in bids for six months.

In addition to development of new roads, the civic body will also outsource comprehensive maintenance of roads to private contractors.

Under the new system, the contractor will also be responsible for maintenance of the entire range of facilities on a road. Officials will monitor the performance with field visits. A mobile-based application will help motorists upload damages to roads including potholes or patches with poor skid resistance from the spot. Repair works will be carried out based on such feedback. Payment for the contractor will be made on an ‘outcome’ basis.

In February, the Chennai Corporation’s quality control wing found roads such as Anna Pillai Street in Geroge Town to be of inferior quality. The civic body issued notices to the contractors to scrape out the entire road and carry out the work again.

But contractors refused to relay them as per specifications as the civic body did not have a quality control manual for roads.

“We will be able to penalise contractors who do not adhere to the quality control manual. We were unable to penalise contractors so far because we did not have such a manual. The quality control wing will start intensive screening of bus routes and interior roads,” said an official. Chennai Corporation will ask the contractor to redo the work if the structure violates the manual.

A few councillors alleged that some roads had not been developed, even six months after issuance of work order. “We will initiate action against contractors. A meeting will be organised to review the work on relaying of 10,000 roads on Saturday,” said Mayor Saidai Duraisamy.