Noida authority racing against time to repair potholes, meet CM’s deadline

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath had on April 30 directed all officials to make roads free of potholes by June 15. The Noida authority decided to fix all potholes by April 30 but that did not happen.

The Noida authority is facing problems in repairing potholes by June 15, the deadline set by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for completing all road repair works.

The total length of all arterial and smaller roads in Noida is 1074.72km. Of this, 67.19km, comprising internal and main roads, are riddled with potholes. . (HT Photo)

The main hurdle is that awarding tenders to private contractors takes a long time, the authority officials said.

Engineers of the Noida authority said they have sought help from existing private contractors to repair potholes within the deadline because they cannot hire new ones through the laid down procedures in such a short span.

“We cannot repair long dug-up patches in roads because it requires a bigger budget. To carry out bigger repair work, of more than Rs 1 lakh, we need to float a tender through an online tendering procedure that takes about a one or two to complete. Therefore, we are taking the help of existing contractors to meet June 15 deadline,” an engineer of the Noida authority said.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath had on April 30 directed all officials to make roads free of potholes by June 15. The Noida authority decided to fix all potholes by April 30 but that did not happen.

The total length of all arterial and smaller roads in Noida is 1074.72km. Of this, 67.19km, comprising internal and main roads, are riddled with potholes. The authority could repair potholes only on 30km of road till May 20.

“We have so far completed only 80% of the repair work. We will finish remaining work by June 10, come what may. But we will repair only small potholes and that too on roads that get a heavy volume of traffic. New roads in developing areas will be repaired later,” the engineer said.

The Noida authority chief executive officer Amit Mohan Prasad said his team will meet the deadline.

“I will ask engineers to float a one-week tender to select a contractor if required. We will meet the June 15 deadline,” he said.

Earlier, Noida authority had said it has made a Twitter handle for people to post pictures of potholes along with its location to get them immediately repaired.

The Twitter handle — @noida_authority#Tag a pothole — to is to help the authority meet the June 15 deadline.