Craters throw muck on ‘cleanest city’ image

Surat: More than the coronavirus pandemic, the residents of India’s second cleanest city Surat are struggling to commute on the city roads. Heavy rainfall over the past few weeks has exposed the pathetic conditions of city roads which are full of potholes.
According to the survey carried out by the road development department of the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC), out of the total 1,164 roads maintained by the civic body in the eight municipal zones of the city, 377 roads having the length of 78 km have sustained major to minor damages due to heavy rains. Only 85 of the damaged roads have been repaired by the SMC.
With the rains playing truant, the road contractors and the SMC roads and building department have been able to take up less than 15% of the road repair.
On the other hand, out of the total 1,051 roads under the defect liability period (DLP)—maintained by the contractors for the period of five years from the date of construction— 130 roads having length of 13 km have sustained minor to major damages. The contractors have been able to repair only 24 roads due to continuous rains.
Every year, the SMC spends close to Rs 20 crore on repairing the potholed roads. This time around, the road development department has estimated the cost of road repairs to be around Rs 15 crore.
The posh areas in Athwa zone of the SMC has 66 road stretches in the length of four kilometres with major to minor damage are to be repaired with patchwork. These areas include Athwalines, Ghod Dod Road, Parle Point, Piplod, Magdalla etc. Similarly, about 39 road stretches in Rander zone and about 126 stretches in Central zone are to be repaired.
Majority of the textile markets falling in the Central zone of the civic body have badly damaged roads, giving nightmares to the textile traders, visitors and transporters.
Manoj Agarwal, president of Federation of Surat Textile Traders’ Association (FOSTTA) said, “It is a bumpy ride for all of us when we visit the textile market area on Ring Road and Salabatpura. The roads are in very bad condition. The SMC teams are doing patchwork, but the rains wash it off.”
Executive engineer (roads development), Akshay Pandya told TOI, “We had planned to recarpet the roads maintained by SMC after Holi festival, but due to the lockdown the repair work could not be undertaken. We are unable to perform the repair works due to rains continuing in the city. All the major repairs will be undertaken soon after monsoon.”