CUTTACK: In a major embarrassment for the district administration and the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC), a group of journalists in the city on Tuesday joined hands to clear accumulated sand from the busy Kathajodi river embankment road, something that had been conveniently ignored by the former despite orders from the Orissa High Court.
Following the recent death of two women including a journalist who were run over by a truck after their scooter skidded off sand spillage on Bhubaneswar-Puri road, the state government on Sunday directed the road maintenance authorities to adopt regular mechanised cleaning to remove sand from roads.
This apart, the Orissa High Court has repeatedly emphasised strict regulation and monitoring of sand transportation, holding that unsafe transportation and spillage of sand on roads posed grave threat to public safety. The State Transport Authority (STA) too, issued a comprehensive standard operating procedure (SOP) to National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the Works department and municipal bodies, mandating stricter measures to address concerns related to sand spillage causing frequent road accidents.
However, the district administration and the CMC are yet to wake up from their slumber. Piles of sand can be seen accumulated on the roads in Cuttack often causing accidents. Concerned over the alleged apathy of the authorities, the scribes took it upon themselves and lifted the piled up sand from the Kathajodi river embankment road.
Despite it being a busy thoroughfare connecting several important institutions like National Law University Odisha (NLUO), Sri Sri University and second campus of Ravenshaw University, thick layers of sand had been lying piled up for long on the road stretching from Bellevue square to Balighat Gada in CDA Sector-6 locality, posing life threat for commuters especially those using two-wheelers.
“The administration should learn its lesson from this incident and take active steps to remove sand from roads. If the roads are not cleaned in the coming days, we will continue to do it ourselves every week,” said the scribes.