While some of the major road works taken up during last council still remain incomplete, a few roads that were renovated to pucca ones a year ago are in bad shape already and cry for immediate attention. The newly laid concrete road from Bayababa Chhak to Sahid Nagar electric substation and the road from Saree House linking Super Bazaar via Mayur Bhawan are two glaring examples of low quality works.

‘‘There is no denying the fact that quality standards were compromised during construction of the two roads,’’ admitted chairman of the BMC Public Works Committee Padmanav Das. He further attributed the early damage of the roads to lack of drainage system.

Although the corporation invited tender for reconstruction of the road from veterinary hospital to NH-5 running infront of Hotel Triumph Residency with an estimated cost of Rs 1.42 crore in June 2007, it has remained a non-starter due to the callousness of the BMC. The contractor who was awarded the work left mid-way due to irregular payment of bills. It took almost another year to complete the retendering process.

Asked about the inordinate delay in the completion of the work, Sahid Nagar corporator Umanath Mishra told this paper that the construction work has been halted due to rains. Metalling work of the road is over and blacktopping will be made only when the weather condition improves. A good spell of rains after blacktopping will damage the road and he does not want that to happen again, he reasoned.

Admittedly paucity of fund is the major reason for the poor maintenance of BMC roads. The corporation has provided only Rs 50 lakh to each ward including Ward No. 22 under which major portion of Sahid Nagar comes. This is too meagre when the actual requirement is about Rs 10 crore, said Das.

Lending support to Das, BMC Mayor Anantanarayan Jena said the Government support to the corporation for road infrastructure development is only Rs 8 crore when its past liabilities are to the tune of Rs 40 crore. The road projects taken up for the current fiscal is about Rs 40 crore.

Unless the fiscal position of the corporation improves drasticaly, it would be difficult to clear the huge outstanding dues of the contractors and take up new projects, he said.

Unable to take up such a huge financial burden, the corporation passed a resoultion recently to handover all the major roads under its jurisdiction to the Public Works Department, he said.