Published On : Fri, May 5th, 2017

The newly cemented Great Nag Road goes to dogs within two years!

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Nagpur:
The principle reason for changing most of our tar roads to cement roads was cited as the longevity and durability of cement roads.

Cement roads were meant to last for 50 years

“Cement roads need more initial investment, and disrupt traffic for some time while being built, but once they are ready will last us for 50 years… 50 maintenance-free years”, we were told.

So shops, offices and residences situated along this serpentine old and busy road of Nagpur bore discomfort and a lot of inconvenience for the many months that the new cemented road was being laid out.

But it is already cracking up…

This ‘new’ road has developed massive cracks and is breaking up within one year of construction and no one in NMC is ready to take cognisance and punish and penalize the guilty parties who have done such slip shod work.

The Great Nag road plies from old Shukrawari to Reshimbagh square . The stretch that goes from Reshimbag square to Jagnade chowk , also Ashok chowk is the one that has developed cracks which are not even being repaired or filled up.

The first phase of this road was completed in 2014 and the second last year. Some work is still pending while damages have already begun!

Cost escalated as delays occurred

The cementing of this road was entrusted to Company called Unity Infra Projects Ltd. and it was to be implemented in 6 phases. KDK college to Jagnade square; Jagnade square to Juni Shukrawari square, Juni Shukrawari to Reshimbag; Reshimbag to Ashok chowk; Ashok to Baidyanath square and Baidyanath to Moksha Dham.

The work order was given in 2011 and roads were supposed to be ready by 2013. But lot of work is still pending and costs have escalated from Rs. 77.50 crores to Rs. 122.72 crores.

Unity Infrastructure was taken to court in between

Relations between NMC and Unity have been chequered and NMC officials had even gone to court and filed complaints against slow working and delays of the road work.

But for some reason, in 2015 the case against them was withdrawn and they were newly awarded more work!

‘The controversial cement concrete road project begins anew with Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) withdrawing the appeal filed against contractor Unity Infra Projects Limited, and executing a supplementary agreement with it.

NMC superintending engineer Prakash Urade told media contractor will have to complete remaining works within two years. “The petition in the district court has been withdrawn. New work order has been issued after executing supplementary agreement,” he said.

Urade added that the contractor has been directed to complete works on remaining side of West High Court road between Shankar Nagar Square and Bajaj Nagar Square immediately. “Contractor will also have to complete remaining works on Great Nag road. Then the contractor will have to execute works on remaining roads proposed under the project,” he said.’

As per the report, the said reports were to have been completed in two years which time period lapsed in February 2017.

Not only has work not been completed on time, there have been cost escalations and quality of work done is being found so inferior.

When will NMC/ State Govt. act against Unity??