Citizens' Voice Coimbatore complained that the issue is compounded by indiscriminate cutting of the roads for installing various services by different departments, with little coordination among Departments like TANGEDCO, Telecom providers, TWAD Board (Suez 24x7 water supply project) besides UGD.
The Citizens' Voice Coimbatore members have written to Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation Commissioner, M Prathap highlighting that roads in Coimbatore which were of very good quality until a few years back has been deteriorating due to lack of timely maintenance.
C M. Jayaraman, President and V A Shanmugham, Secretary, Citizens' Voice Coimbatore complained to the CCMC Commissioner that the issue was compounded by indiscriminate cutting of the roads for installing various services by different Departments.
"There is little coordination among Departments like TANGEDCO, Telecom providers, TWAD Board (Suez 24x7 water supply project) besides UGD. Following which, the roads are dug several times without any information or intimation between them. This multiple digging of roads at different intervals, results in the roads becoming unmotorable and leads to very frequent serious accidents to pedestrians and those driving vehicles. It is a pity that seldom the officials visit the area when the work is in progress and the workers without the supervisors do it according to their whims and fancies.
Several water connections, sewage pipes and underground power cables have been completely affected due to digging of roads. In short, many of the officials are hand-in-glove with the contractors for this sorry state of affairs, for not portraying the real status to the higher-ups and the reinstatement of the road after cutting is not done properly despite the contract bill for the laying of services, the cost of reinstatement etc," stated the Citizens' Voice Coimbatore officials.
"Less said the better about the condition of the main road in Ward No. 95 (Thirumarai Nagar), Edayarpalayam which are subjected to digging on some pretext or the other for months together. It poses a threat to the life of the motorists and is even more dangerous during night hours when several accidents have taken place regularly.
A strong monitoring mechanism is the need of the hour to keep a tab on the work being done by the contractors. A centralized coordination cell to monitor and authorize the digging of roads by different departments is needed to be established.
Also, as is done in many countries when new roads or existing roads are relayed, service ducts are provided along as well as across the roads at frequent intervals to enable different Departments to install their services without cutting the roads. This would prevent road being dug multiple times.
Before any work starts as per the RTI Act, Departments are supposed to display all the vital information – like the cost of the project, commencement and completion of the job, contractor’s name and Department-in-charge etc, but it is not done in reality. Better to take action now before things go from bad to worst," warned Citizens' Voice Coimbatore members in their letter to the CCMC Commissioner.