Bumps ahead in road funds

SO THE Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) has managed to wrangle Rs 2.5 crore for patching up roads from the government. If past experience is anything to go, though, motorists shouldn?t set too much store about the grant translating into smoother rides.

SO THE Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) has managed to wrangle Rs 2.5 crore for patching up roads from the government. If past experience is anything to go, though, motorists shouldn’t set too much store about the grant translating into smoother rides.

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Consider this - between FY ’03 to ’06 the Corporation spent a whopping Rs 1,203.45 lakh on maintenance and patchwork. The roads, however, have proved as resistant to the ‘band-aid’ measures as Humpty Dumpty to the labours of the King’s men.

As any vehicle owner will testify, cash transfusions injected every monsoon to revive the terminally ill road network have little discernible effect. Except, of course, to help line the pockets of a few favoured contractors.

Questioned about why road repairs turn out to be a Sisyphean endeavour, Corporation engineers trot out a number of theories. “The black soil in the Malwa region makes it difficult for the tar to stick to the surface,” says City Engineer Hans Kumar Jain. Another official who doesn’t want to be named blames lax quality control for the inefficacious patchwork.

“The Corporation could have built at least three major roads from scratch with the money it has spent on patching up roads during the last few years,” admitted a BJP corporator intimately involved with Public Works during the last council. After all, the total cost for the Bond Road scheme under which 19 major roads are to be built is Rs 50 crore, he added.

New roads fare no better
IF THE patchwork task is patchy, the fate of new roads isn’t much better. Take the second phase of the Bond Road scheme. The project, under which 19-odd roads are to be built at a cost of Rs 50 crore, is almost certain to exceed its June 2008 deadline. Although the Corporation displayed great alacrity in awarding tenders, the project went into slow mo after M/s Pratibha Enterprises was issued the work order.

In the six months since receiving the green signal, the company has only started work on the Mahesh Guard line-Baneshwar Kund stretch. And given the pace at which work is proceeding this road alone is likely to take over one year to complete.

Interestingly, though the IMC has already paid the company Rs 2 crore, it hasn’t even bothered to verbally instruct the contractor to speed up work let alone issue a notice for the tardy pace.