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.