Over 5 months after inauguration, road construction yet to begin

Ludhiana: Even 162 days after the inauguration of road construction work in SBS Nagar E Block market and residential areas, residents are still waiting for the work to begin. Congress MP Ravneet Bittu and cabinet minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu had inaugurated the work in November last year, but the work never got started. Residents are now threatening to press Nota in the elections, as no party is bothered about their issues.
The roads were supposed to be constructed in E Block market with an expenditure of Rs40 lakh. But as work at the site has still not begun, residents have become anxious about it, even as it was inaugurated on November 2 last year with great pomp and show.

Area resident Arvind Sharma said the construction material was kept in the market for starting work immediately after the inauguration, but the work never got started and the public continued to face problems. He said residents had hoped to get rid of bumpy rides, and now they were planning to press Nota this time, because no political party was concerned about issues being faced by the general public.

Amarjit Singh, another area resident, rued that the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) had awarded the work to a contractor who was supposed to start work in two months, but so far nothing had been done. He said it was difficult to walk or drive on the road, especially for women and senior citizens.

However, mentioning about the poor quality of road gullies installed recently, resident Nirmal Bhatia said: “The road gullies and tiles on the sides of a road installed a few days ago have already started getting damaged, and the sub-standard material being used in this work has made residents even more worried whether road construction will take place properly or not.”

Meanwhile, LIT executive engineer Boota Ram said: “At the moment, road construction is going on in G Block and near the railway line. After that, E Block will be taken up. We cannot start work at all locations in one go, as it is not possible to keep a check.” He said it would not take more than four to five days to start the road construction work.