Part of cement road caves in; tar laid to hide craters also peels off

Nagpur: Part of a cement concrete road has caved in while two more concretized stretches are in bad condition due to inferior quality of works. The quality of works is so bad that a patch of cement concrete required asphalting, and now even this tar is also peeling off.
TOI had recently reported the state’s public works department (PWD) has asked a contractor to tar many parts of a cement concrete road as surface layer had come off and potholes had developed. This was the condition of road connecting Inner Ring Road (IRR) with Hudkeshwar. Another road, from Pipla Phata to Outer Ring Road too was damaged to a great extent even before completion of works.

TOI toured three roads — Manewada Square-Besa Chowk, Shilpa Society-Beltarodi police station, and Manish Nagar-Besa Chowk. PWD had concretized all three roads with length of around 4.8km at a cost of around ₹16 crore. Concretization works were completed in 2017 but other works are pending.
Due to shoddy quality of works, the roads have turned into nightmare for citizens instead of giving relief. Quality of works is so bad that part of cement concrete road caved-in at Besa-Beltarodi T-point at Manish Nagar. To prevent untoward incident, nearby shopkeepers threw stones and fixed a tree branch in the hole. Neither the engineers of PWD nor traffic police visited and rectified the problem for last one week. The remaining part of this road is also in bad condition.
The cement concrete road from Shilpa Society to Beltarodi police station is probably the worst-ever work of concretization done in the city. Series of potholes can be seen on this stretch of 2.5km. Road has become undulating in some parts. Trenches have developed at the connecting points of internal roads with this road. The same can be seen between inter-locking tiles and concretized patch. Not a single meter of the road’s surface layer has remained in original state, and surface is peeling off.
Similar is the condition with around 300 meter road from Besa Chowk to nullah towards Manewada Square. Part of this road was so bad that it had to be tarred a few days ago. Shockingly, the tar has also started to come out worsening the situation. In some parts, iron rods, which are part of reinforcement, are exposed, posing a serious threat to commuters.
In all three roads, works of road-divider, storm water drain network, footpath etc are yet to be completed. Condition of completed works is also very bad.
Besa-Beltarodi former sarpanch Surendra Banait demanded stringent action against engineers of PWD for wasting public money. “Citizens are facing serious inconvenience. Crores of public money has gone waste in concretization works. These roads have been concretized so they will need huge cost for repairing. Responsibility should be fixed followed by recovery of wasted public money,” he said.
Instead of five years, PWD engineers have kept defect liability period (DLP) of contractors at three years. Most shocking is that the engineers did not get repairs works done from contractors in DLP period. Now, they will seek funds from the government for these repair works.