Traffic hit as Vijaywada road sinks in

VIJAYAWADA: Traffic took a hit after the road at Ganpatirao Street has sunk and developed a huge pit near fish market in One Town on Thursday. The road suddenly caved in forming a 5 feet deep 5 feet wide pit in the middle. As the entire traffic was diverted thro-ugh One Town because of Kanakadurga flyover works, the route was already flooded with heavy traffic. The pothole on the road has aggravated the traffic woes with more than half of the road becoming inaccessible to the commuters. It has created a bottleneck at the spot, as the vehicles from both the sides have to use the same lane.

The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation officials have come to the spot only on Friday morning to get the repairs done. Commuters suffered all through the night and on Friday. Meanwhile, the huge pit that developed in middle of the road expo-sed the quality of the works done during Krishna Pushkaralu and of the underground dra-inage works. Prelimi-nary observation revea-led that faulty underground drain works was the reason for the road caving in. The underground drain works concluded recently in the area and the VMC is doing a trial run. Superintending engineer for water supply in VMC, P. Adiseshu said that a joint in the underground pipeline has developed a leak causing the water to come out which in turn eroded the soil creating a pit on the road during the trial run.

The sewage water is being pumped from One Town to the treatment plant at Jakkampudi with high-power motors. The high-power sometimes causes leakages at weak joints, he said. The road will be restored by Saturday morning by fixing the leak, he added. Many allegations were raised over the quality of Krishna Pushkaralu works and with road getting eroded, all the allegations resurfaced. The locals were pointing out that the works were done in a hurried manner without taking proper care.