The Hindu            30.10.2013

GHMC begins road repair work

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC)
engineering wing has begun repair and restoration work on roads that
were badly damaged in the heavy rains across the city last week.

Even
while the potholes and the craters were being attended to, denizens
continued to suffer with the dust on the roads that has turned driving
into a blinding affair for the last three days.

The
municipal officials have taken up enumeration of the affected road
stretches and potholes to prepare budgetary estimates for the repairs
while teams accompanied with required infrastructure were despatched for
restoration of the damaged main corridors.

Senior
officials rued that all their efforts in the last two months to give
some semblance to the city roads were washed out in the four days when
rains lashed the city last week. Last month, the civic body was working
on filling nearly 20,000 identified potholes and repairs on several
roads at a cost of Rs.14 crore.

“We had spent Rs.10
crore and achieved some results but we have to again reassess the damage
caused by the recent downpour,” an official said. GHMC is also
contemplating earmarking Rs.50 lakh for each of the five zones for quick
tenders and taking up restoration works at the earliest.

Engineer-in-Chief
R. Dhan Singh said repair and restoration work was already taken up at
several stretches in the city and some of them were already attended to.

“We
are in the process of identifying the total damage to roads due to the
recent rains and budget estimates will be prepared accordingly before
taking up the work,” he said.

However, gravel and
soil that had spread out on the roads along with dust continued to
trouble motorists as the municipal sweepers were piling up mounds of
dust brushed from the roadsides on many stretches but within no time
these were swirling in the air as there was a delay in the trucks
picking them up, charged commuters.