Residents of Gandhi Nagar and Sastri Nagar pick holes in road work

They say proper milling has not been carried out on some of the roads

Members of Spark, a city-based civic forum, have complained that some roads in the Gandhi Nagar and Sastri Nagar have been relaid without adherence to standard milling procedures. Greater Chennai Corporation undertook road-relaying work in these localities in August.

“The Gandhi Nagar Third Main Road and Fourth Main Road have to be milled up to 80mm to make up for the lack of milling in the past,” says T. D. Babu, founder-member of Spark.

Another norm that has been thrown to the wind is milling of road surfaces charactereised by intersections.

To illustrate, they draw attention to a manhole at the intersection of First Cross Street and Second Cross Street in Sastri Nagar which is now at a higher level.

As a result, sewage from septic tanks in houses on Second Cross Street would not flow into the sewage drain. Besides, the mouth of a chamber of a stormwater drain has been covered by the road surface.

Even the manholes have almost “sunk”, note residents.

It’s also said that potholes have been ignored on some patches.

The mud and other kinds of trash have not been removed before the road work was carried out, allege residents.

Besides, the mandatory gap between the road and the pavements has not been maintained, and this would prevent rainwater percolation into the ground and result in water-logging, residents add.

Residents of Adyar insist that the practice of informing residents before road-relaying work should be followed. Doing so would enable them to monitor the work and inform the Greater Chennai Corporation of any flaws.

They have also sought that work sites sport a board with the name of the contractor and the name and phone number of the GCC engineer in charge of the work.