KOCHI: The repair of the key Kundannoor-Thevara bridge on NH-966 has come under fire with local residents and Maradu municipality authorities complaining that the work has turned to be a mere pothole-filling exercise, with minimum tarring. The common refrain: “It won’t last long.” The two-km bridge was closed for traffic at 10pm on Friday to carry out maintenance activities after the pothole-riddled stretch witnessed a spate of accidents. The PWD NH wing wrapped up the work by Monday evening and the stretch is set to be opened for traffic on Tuesday morning.
The diversion of traffic to facilitate the work resulted in heavy congestion in several parts of the city, including MG Road (with a long queue of vehicles seen right from Willingdon Island), Thevara, and Vyttila junction. The local residents questioned the need to close down the bridge for three days if the scope of the repair was to just fill potholes.
Maradu municipality chairperson Antony Ashanparambil shot off letters to PWD Minister P A Mohamed Riyas and the Aluva NH sub-division assistant executive engineer, citing the “poor quality and shabby” repair. “This is just bituminous patchwork, barely using tar. This won’t last for long and will again result in the formation of potholes in a short time. They could have done this while allowing traffic through one side. Now, the whole city has been affected by the traffic diversion,” Ashanparambil said.
“They had carried out similar patchwork earlier too, on May 17 and June 4. But this time, we expected a proper repair with the bridge closed for three days. Now, it has turned out to be patchwork again,” said a disappointed Shajan O S, 52, a resident of Nettoor. Many of the local residents were forced to walk for over two kilometres to drop their children to school or to proceed to their workplaces.