Residents’ associations and NGOs in the city have joined hands to expose a scam related to road relaying in the city.
“We have analysed the data. We have identified a nexus between contractors and senior officials. We will expose it in two days,” said a representative.
Eighteen residents’ associations and NGOs, at a meeting last week announced that they have started collecting data on roads, alleging maladministration in the entire process of relaying. Some of the NGOs and residents associated with the compilation of data alleged that they were harassed by the police after the announcement of a study on roads by the civil society. The Corporation also deleted data on the contractors online. After protests by residents, the Commissioner said the data will be restored.
‘194 roads redesigned’
A senior official of the Chennai Corporation said in the wake of the December 2015 floods, when several roads were damaged, the civic body brought in multiple measures to improve bus route roads. The official said 194 roads were identified and a private consultant was appointed to redesign the roads using the Benkelman Beam Deflection test. The civic body also paved roads using automatic sensor paver machines, carried out chamber correction before and after completion of road relaying to prevent water stagnation, and tested the quality of the paved roads through the State Quality Monitor appointed by TNUIFSL.
The bus route roads were paved to international standards set by the Indian Road Congress with three layers of work — profile correction, strengthening layer and wearing layer.
Payments were entrusted to the consultants, and were released by the civic body only after getting certification of the paved roads, the official said.