Surprise showers expose sorry state of roads in Bhopal

BHOPAL: Overnight rains on Wednesday, which extended till late Thursday afternoon, brought back the haunting memories of perennial ‘hotspots’ on the roads of Bhopal, which have been a nightmare for commuters particularly in rainy season.
With condition of roads set to deteriorate in upcoming monsoon season, blame game among the agencies responsible for construction and maintenance of roads, has also begun.
Superintendent engineer, Capital Project Administration (CPA), Jawahar Singh, when reminded of the pathetic condition of road on both sides of Manisha Market in Shahpura (the road maintained by the CPA) , said, “ Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) had dug up the road to lay the pipeline, they will repair the road.”
BMC, which is responsible for maintenance of more than 75% road network in the city seems to be oblivious to its duties. Be it maintenance of service roads connecting colonies or restoration of main roads dug up for laying of sewage or water pipelines, BMC officials seldom appear to be accountable to anyone.
“Roads in almost all the colonies of Kolar area are dug up for laying of sewage pipelines, but BMC never asked the contractors concerned to carry out restoration work before letting them go as they should have done. We asked the BMC officials but they kept assuring us that it would be done and now monsoon is almost here. Mandakini, Rajharsh or Sainath Colony -roads in every colony are dug up,” said Saurav Shrivastava, a civil contractor.
BMC chief engineer in-charge of roads, P K Jain ,when contacted for comments refused to say anything on the pretext that he was in a meeting and would talk on the issue later. But, later, he never picked up the phone.
Confusion over which road belongs to whom among the three major agencies engaged in the maintenance task-BMC, CPA and PWD- still persists as ever.
Public works department (PWD) chief engineer in-charge of roads , VK Aarak, said “Majority of roads under our supervision are well-maintained, but as the monsoon is on its way, we have spotted a few roads which need repair under our circle. A fortnight before the monsoon, repair work will start on these patches.”
Office of district collector, Tarun Pithode, informed that directives for repairing the bad roads has already been issued .