Nagpur: Left with red face over shoddy construction of roads resulting in riddles of potholes showing their ugly face with the first showers of monsoon, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has decided to put its foot down against the truant contractors and babus as well. The Mayor and Standing Committee Chairman called a meeting of officials in haste and issued a diktat to carry out survey of all roads in all zones within 2-3 days and submit the report to Chief Engineer of the civic body. The Chief Engineer has been directed to study the report and put the guilty contractors in “black list” as well as take stern action against those officials who submitted “quality control” reports.
NMC has decided to check quality of roads. If the roads arefound to be in bad shape within 24 months of tarring, NMC will initiate action against contractors concerned. Apart from NMC, the roads in city are constructed by NIT, PWD, MSRDC and National Highways. The roads should withstand onslaught at least for 24 months.
The Chairman of Standing Committee Sudhir Raut the other day inspected the poor condition of roads personally. During inspection, Raut came to know that a road constructed by a contractor named O G Bajaj had given up within 16 months. The contractor, to escape punitive action, offered to construct the said road afress but the NMC Administration reportedly spurned the offer.
In the meeting, the Mayor asked the NMC engineers to conduct the survey in this regard in their respective zones and submit the report to Chief Engineer within 2-3 days. The Chief Engineer should study the report minutely and the contractors who built the roads poorly should be put in “black list” if damage to road is severe. Also the NMC officials who submitted quality control reports of such poor roads will face the music as well.
“The roads are made keeping in mind the load and frequency of vehicles plying on them. However, if more number of heavy vehicles like trucks are plying on these roads and those trucks also are overloaded, the responsibility rests with Regional Transport Office. It is because of plying of overloaded trucks that goes unchecked on part of RTO that the condition of roads in city get worsened rapidly,” Raut stated.
Raut further said that the contractors submitting ‘below’ rate tenders will have to remit the ‘below’ amount along with their tenders in the form of deposit. A decision regarding this aspect was taken by the Standing Committee two months ago. The tenders of such contractors will be opened only after completion of this formality, Raut said.
– Rajeev Ranjan Kushwaha ( rajeev.nagpurtoday@gmail.com )
