AHMEDABAD: Gujarat high court once again pulled up the
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (
AMC) for its sluggish and low-grade road repairs in the city after they got damaged during last monsoon.
To describe civic body’s efforts, the bench of Justice M R Shah and Justice A Y Kogje taunted, “We see concrete (metal) everywhere on roads, but there is no concrete step taken to improve road condition. Layers of asphalt are laid down in the name of road resurfacing. Does the patchwork on road mean road repairing?” The court also criticized road resurfacing which results in unusual increase in road levels.
The court sought to know which scientific technique was applied for road resurfacing in the city. The court further lashed out, “Many roads are still in very poor condition, but people do not come out to complain. This is because people are fed up with the functioning of the authority. They know that even if they complain about bad roads, their grievance will not be redressed.”
AMC submitted before the court that most of the roads have been restored to their previous condition. The court was not in a mood to hear AMC’s submissions any further and asked for tenders and bids received from contractors for the road construction. This happened after petitioner Mushtak Kadri’s advocate
Amit Panchal submitted that the AMC has been misguiding the court in this regard. It has not placed any details of action taken for lapses in road resurfacing job, which ultimately resulted in poor road condition. “On how many people AMC has imposed fine? To whom people should complain in case of injury in accidents caused due to bad roads? The monsoon will begin in a couple of months, but no steps have been taken and even if they have been taken, it is not in people’s knowledge,” advocate Panchal submitted.
The court further pulled up AMC by asking whether it can show the different in the processes of road resurfacing, road repairing and construction of a road. The court also insisted on fixing the liability on companies and government departments after roads are dug up for laying down a pipeline or cables.
The high court had initiated proceedings on this issue in August last year on a PIL demanding repairs of roads that got damaged in the monsoon. The petitioner had urged for making norms more stringent for contractors to make them more answerable. He had demanded setting up of grievance redressal mechanism as well as more transparency in the process.
Courting ire