NAGPUR: Annoyed over the pathetic condition of city roads, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Friday slammed the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) for its failure to maintain them.
While hearing a PIL on city’s bad roads, particularly in areas like Sangharsh Nagar, Chandmari Temple Road, Bidgaon T-point and the Bhandewadi Dumping Yard, the HC severally censured the civic authorities.
“If barren pieces of land are used as roads, the only option available to the user would be to choose between a small pit and a bigger pothole. We hope that at least now the NMC authorities would be awakened and get on with the job without wasting any further time,” a division bench comprising justices Sunil Shukre and Avinash Gharote said.
“We’re constrained to issue this direction to NMC after seeing the photographs submitted by the petitioners. All this depicts an extremely sorry state of affairs of the roads. It’s beyond our imagination as to how much pain the residents of concerned localities must have been experiencing every time they’re required to use these barren pieces of land and not roads as they appear to be in the photographs,” the bench added.
Before adjourning the hearing by four weeks, the judges directed NMC to commence work on the road project in petitioners’ areas within three weeks and submit a detailed reply.
“We’re of the view that unless actual work is commenced, the corporation must not entertain any hopes for receipt of funds. When the state government has committed itself to fund the project in its entirety, there is no reason for NMC to dither and apprehend that funds may not be actually available to it while its liability to pay contractors for the works carried out increases,” the HC said.
According to petitioners Chandrashekhar Pillari and others, the civic body had proposed work of widening, cement construction and asphalting of three stretches of a road starting from Sangharsh Nagar and going up to the Bhandewadi Dumping Yard and then to Chandmari Temple, stretching further to Bidgaon T-point and then leading to the Wathoda crematorium.
The government had agreed to fully fund the project. However, the NMC failed to start the work, forcing aggrieved residents to knock HC’s doors.
The NMC informed that the tender process is already completed and now the matter is at the stage of issuance of work order. The lowest bid was submitted on October 30, 2019, by contractor SK Gurbaxani which was accepted. Since then, the project is pending for issuance of work order. NMC counsel Girish Kunte contended that work orders weren't issued as the government failed to deposit funds in its bank accounts.