Airport road cannot bear more than 9 tonnes of weight: Vigilance Bureau

Vigilance Bureau conducted surprise check of airport road in Mohali earlier this week. (Source: Express Archives)

AFTER COLLECTING samples of the material used for construction of the accident-prone airport road, the Vigilance Bureau (VB) found that the road was not constructed according to specifications of the Centre for Road Research in India. Preliminary investigation indicated that the road could not bear more than 9 tonnes of weight due to which it was damaged at many places.

Sources in the VB told Chandigarh Newsline that the technical team of the investigating agency, which consists of engineers and other staff, found that when the road’s bed was being prepared, the contractor did not use crushed stones. Instead, it used uncrushed stones which make the road prone to damage due to traffic.

“The uncrushed stones create little space due to which the stones move. When heavy vehicles ply, the movement of the stones weakens the road. On the other side, when the crushed stones are used to prepare the bed, there is little scope of the stones to move due to lesser space,” said a VB technical officer.

Meanwhile, the VB’s technical team also found that the road should have a l50-centimetre layer of bitumen but when the measurements were taken, the layer was found to be 130 centimetres. The layer of the premix, which is to be used on the road, should be 700 cm thick but the VB team found that it was only 540 cm thick on the airport road.

“We had already said that the road was not constructed keeping in view all the specifications. We have collected the samples and now our technical teams are examining all the parameters. Once we are done with the tests and samplings, we will proceed further,” said a VB official.

Meanwhile, the issue of high number of deaths on the airport road may go to court. Advocate H S Hundal, a social activist, said he was planning to move court as the road had become a death trap.

“The administration and GMADA should chalk out a strategy to deal with the growing number of road accidents, I will make the administration a party to the case,” added Hundal.