Bumpy road leads to state highways department’s office

COIMBATORE: While the state highways department is earning laurels for maintaining the roads, the road that leads to the department’s office in the city is in a bad condition and has turned into a hazardous stretch.

The road, owned by the city corporation, was dug up to lay underground drainage (UGD) pipelines about six months ago and is yet to be restored.

Not just the one lane, all the lanes of Highways Colony, which was known as Arignar Anna Nagar, is in bad shape, said Xavier, a resident. “The roads were in good shape until the corporation workers dug it up to lay pipelines about six months ago. Instead of restoring the roads to its original shape, the workers just laid a layer of concrete over the potholes,” he said.

Over 300 families are residing in the colony. “As the quality of concrete was poor, coarse aggregate from the concrete spill out whenever vehicles pass. At present, the entire stretch is littered with stones and it has become extremely difficult for commuters to cross the stretch. I have seen motorists and pedestrians slipping and falling down,” another resident said. “As the corporation is turning a deaf ear to our complaints, we have stopped escalating the issue. We have started to fill the potholes near our houses with concrete to make it usable.”

Explaining that a considerate amount of cement, water, sand and coarse aggregate should be added to make good quality concrete, civil engineer S Balaji said that only when the percentage of cement is less in the mixture, coarse aggregate come out. “It means that the quality of concrete is poor and the remaining layers would also peel off in the coming days.”

Corporation officials promised to look into the issue.