Material shortage hits road work, residents upset

Ludhiana: The residents in Juhi Enclave are still waiting for the construction of roads which was supposed to be done in October. The municipal corporation (MC) officials claimed the work is due because of shortage of construction material; they’ve laid the stone metal layer and the bitumen will also be laid down within the next 15 days. However, it was after following legal process that the enclave residents could get the works allotted from the civic body but still there is a delay in the work.
The members of the residents’ welfare society informed that the colony was developed near Jawala Singh Chowk about 15 years back by some private developer and was transferred to the civic body for further development and maintenance works. However, despite several requests when nothing happened for many years, the matter reached the National Lok Adalat.
The National Lok Adalat, in its judgement on December 4, 2020, had asked the MC officials to construct roads and constitute three park management committees to handle the green belts in the colony. The MC was to complete this task in six months. But when the officials did not act, the residents again reached the body and on May 25, the orders to attach the official vehicle of MC commissioner and office furniture of other officials were issued. Since then, officials came into action and started the process.
The MC officials had claimed to provide proper roads to the residents in October, but nothing has been done so far except formation of the park management committees. The residents rued that there was a dire need of civic amenities in their area.
Meanwhile, superintending engineer of bridges and road department Tirath Bansal said, “Initially, there was a shortage of material due to which the work could not start, but now we have laid down one layer of stones at road and now second layer will be laid down, followed by which bitumen road will be laid down.”
What about road constructed with plastic waste?
As the Bathinda MC has paved the way by constructing a road with plastic waste, the civic officials had announced to construct one sample road in ward number 94 here, as well. On Monday, the work work to install road gulleys finally started. further work will start once the road is levelled.