PWD hopes to get roads repaired by Oct 2nd week

Thiruvananthapuram: Public Works Department’s National Highway division is working hard to complete patch works across the state by second week of October, caused by the devastating floods. Top officials claimed that road stretches coming under National Highway Authority of India have not been badly affected in the recent floods.

Exactly a month ago, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the severe damages the state had experienced in the flood at Naval Hospital Sanjivani at the Southern Naval Command campus in Kochi. Then, Mr Pinarayi had informed that PWD roads along 16,000 km and local roads along 82,000 km had suffered severe damage.

A top PWD official told DC that damage to the roads is estimated to have made the state poorer by more than '10,000 crore.  However, contrary to the earlier apprehension that there were extensive damages to the road stretches in NH, only certain areas were badly affected.

“Currently, patch works in Kodungalloor in Thr-issur, Kannur and Kas-aragod districts are happening on a war footing. We are hoping to complete the patch work by second week of October. At the same time, the work that was stopped at the Kollam bypass has since resumed,” the official added.

It may be recalled that when the floods had ravaged the state excluding three districts, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Kasaragod, the work by the NH division of the PWD and also by the NHAI had come to a standstill. Sources in the department told this newspaper that though Thiruvananthapuram district had not experienced much flooding, still their engineers had filed a report before the PWD minister G. Sudhakaran that 18 per cent of the roads have been affected.

“Officials are not revealing the percentage of the exact damages each district had faced. There has been much hue and cry against the Central government not granting funds towards the road repair and maintenance of the state national highways and local village roads. The State government should ensure that they kickoff their work which will see the Central government releasing their quota in due course,” said a government contractor to this newspaper.