Blame game over waterlogging in Dhanbad as residents suffer

Dhanbad: Even as residents of several colonies adjoining the crucial City Center-Barwaddah road are forced to endure waterlogging and face infection threats because of an "erroneously constructed" drain, the Dhanbad Municipal Corporation (DMC) and the state road construction department (RCD) are engaged in a blame game accusing each other of the problem.
A team of junior engineers of RCD on Sunday visited the site near Hans Vihar Colony for an inspection. Soon after the inspection, municipal commissioner Chandramohan Kashyap on Saturday wrote a letter to RCD’s (Dhanbad) executive engineer Amrendra Saha raising objections over the lack of response from the department despite several missives earlier to correct the "erroneous" construction of the drain. Kashyap also warned the RCD officials of slapping an FIR, if the problem is not checked.
The RCD, however, said the drain is not faulty and the waterlogging is the result of excess water from DMC’s link roads.
Kashyap said, "The less diameter of reinforced concrete cement (RCC) hume pipes used as drainage beneath the road during the construction work is the main reason for the waterlogging as water from the colony could not flow through it."
Dhanbad deputy commissioner Amit Kumar also asked the DMC to look into the issue. Earlier on June 29, Kashyap and Dhanbad MLA Raj Sinha inspected the sites at Hans Vihar Colony and near Pandit Clinic Road, adjacent to the City Center-Barwaddah Road.
"Other roads, including the one near Barmasia bridge constructed by RCD, have similar problems of waterlogging due to erroneous drain constructions while an impression is created that the problem is due to the DMC," Kashyap added.
Meanwhile, RCD refused to accept the fault. "We will submit an exhaustive report to the DMC and the Dhanbad DC and also send a report to the headquarters of the state road construction department in Ranchi as the fault lies somewhere else and not in the drains constructed by us," RCD executive engineer Amrendra Kumar Saha said.
"There are several constraints in carrying out fresh constructions of drains lying beneath the road. Among them is the road project constructed two years ago. The contractor’s responsibility for maintenance of the road has already also come to an end. No further funds are available to carry out a fresh construction," Saha added.