Sayonara to bad roads, only for Japanese PM Shinzo Abe

AHMEDABAD: It seems that citizens’ pained cries about potholes — which have caused grave injuries and deadly accidents — do not move authorities. What spurs officials into action is a VVIP visit. On Monday, deputy chief minister Nitin Patel announced a Rs 75 crore dole for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to speed up road repairs, 10 days ahead of the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe.
The only other time when the state had intervened in this manner was in September 2014, when the Gujarat government provided Rs 130 crore two weeks ahead of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit. The second lot of these funds, almost Rs 85 crore, came in November, ahead of the Vibrant Gujarat and Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas summits in January 2015.
Now that the coffers are flush with funds, some of the latest road-repair gadgetry was spotted on Tuesday. These included the Jetpatchers, which are working overtime on VIP routes. These special machines repair potholes and bad patches in 10 to 15 minutes. TOI spotted one Jetptacher outside a 5-star hotel in Vastrapur where the Japanese delegation will stay.
In other parts of the city, asphalt dust and loose bitumen were being spread by labourers for temporary relief. But in many other parts of the city, no substantial repairs have been carried out. These areas include the Anjali-Vasna stretch, Anupam Road, Commerce Crossroads, the Danilimda-Chandranagar stretch, Gurukul Road, Helmet Crossroads, Jivraj Mehta hospital Crossroads, the Rani of Jhansi to Nehrunagar stretch, the Shyamal-Prahladnagar stretch, Shivaranjani Crossroads, and Makarba Corporate Road. The condition of the Ashram Road to Income Tax stretch has forced state transport buses to ply on the Sabarmati riverfront Road.
“The state government had supported the AMC with some funds in 2015 and last year,” said a senior AMC official. “This year there were 4,500 potholes, and 202km of the road network suffered heavy damage. It would have been a huge finanical burden for the AMC as 184km of the network is not within the warranty period.”