Kochi corporation sits on conclave’s advise on road revamp

KOCHI: Even as various agencies like City Corporation, Greater Cochin Development Authority, Public Works Department and Kochi Metro Rail Limited have started resurfacing roads, the civic body is still sitting on major recommendations of the Road Conclave.

They include a road annuity scheme, designer roads and white surfacing of rutted roads. Experts feel the quality and life of roads could have been improved many folds if the roads were developed as per these recommendations.

The Road Conclave was organised by the city corporation in 2011. Though the city corporation tried to introduce the road annuity scheme, which will ensure that the construction of roads keeps deadlines and that they are maintained as per specific standards, it failed to formulate a feasible agreement to be signed with contractors.

“It is tricky to introduce annuity scheme for narrow and small roads in divisions,” said works committee chairperson Soumini Jain. However, the annuity scheme has much significance in Kochi in the wake of city roads getting damaged frequently and the corporation had to dole out huge amount of money for annual maintenance.

Meanwhile, town planning committee chairman K.J. Sohan said the civic body could implement only one recommendation of the road conclave, upgrading the traditional road tarring method from the chipping carpet to bitumen macadam and bitumen concrete.

“The civic body is now upgrading all the roads to BM and BC standards,” he told DC. “The civic body couldn’t implement the proposal as it was very costly. The funds allocated by the state government for road works are grossly inadequate for taking up such scientific methods of road construction,” he said.