Battered road breaks motorists’ back

A 400m portion between the corporation’s ward office and Sutherland Global Services company is riddled with potholes while the stretch between Dhandeeswaram bus stop and Velachery police station is non-motorable and only has a loose gravel trail remaining.

“The pitiable condition of the road is beyond description,” is what S. Rangan, a local resident, had to say. MTC bus drivers, who spoke to DC on condition of anonymity, said driving through the road extended their trip time by 45 to 60 minutes. “Driving on this road is damaging not only the buses and other private vehicles but also our backbone,” said an MTC driver.

But, a silent blame game between the local body and Chennai metro water is the reason behind the corporation’s stance, as officials said they are fed up with the inordinate delay by the latter in completing the pipeline work.

“Metro water is laying pipelines for Nemmeli desalination plant second phase operations. There is still a good portion where they have not laid the pipes. At many points, even after completion of their work and the corporation patching up the area with two layers of bitumen, they still dug it up. So, we have come to the decision that we will not waste our money relaying without obtaining complete NOC from metro water,” said a senior official.

“Only minimum intervention whereby the road is made partly motorable will be undertaken by us,” the official added. The ‘minimum intervention’ happens to be spewing loose blue metal on the battered portions of the road. When DC visited the area, it was found that loose gravel made riding extremely difficult for two-wheeler riders, many of whom were exhibiting phenomenal balancing skills to not fall down.

Meanwhile, metro water was in no mood to cow down to the finger pointing from its sister agency. Senior officials told DC that the corporation staff were blaming their agency just for the sake of it. “Our work is happening only in the western portion of the road. There is no plausible explanation for why the road was torn apart in the middle during the rains. So it is easier to just point an accusing finger on us,” the official said.

The official did, however, admit the agency was yet to lay pipes for a 400 m portion on the road. “We will have to wait until they give us permission to continue work. I don’t think it will come through before the monsoon ends,” the official said. Interestingly, the corporation had engaged a private road contractor, KCP contractors, and completed patchwork on the battered stretch only a fortnight ago.

When asked if poor quality patchwork may have led to the present condition, an official said Velachery main road’s volume of traffic was too heavy for the patchwork to hold. Senior officials, however, assured that action will be taken against road contractors whose shoddy work may have resulted in the formation of potholes in the newly relaid roads.