NEW DELHI: As the whole cabinet of the Delhi government is out in the street to find potholes on city roads, a revelation has come from government officials who said that most complaints of ill-maintained roads received from areas are maintained by the Public Works Department (PWD), surpassing the number of complaints filed for roads maintained by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
In mere two months of August and September, the department received over 2,000 complaints related to infrastructure issues with the roads.
“2,055 complaints were received regarding potholes, cave-ins and other damages. This is higher compared to MCD-managed roads, with the number of complaints received by the civic agency being half of what PWD received,” said a senior official
“Out of these complaints, 1,485 have been resolved, while the rest are pending,” he added. The PWD is responsible for managing the 1,400-km-long road network in the city having a width of 60 feet and above.
Officials attributed the spike in complaints partly to the monsoon, which worsened road conditions due to waterlogging. “While lack of maintenance is a reason, the waterlogging exacerbated the deterioration of road quality,” an official said.
However, the officials also said that the PWD has planned to resolve these complaints with a special emphasis on potholes on war footing after strict compliance directions it received from the government.
“Engineers have been ordered to repair potholes in their divisions. GPS and geo-tagging have been made mandatory to ascertain whether the complaints have actually been resolved or not.
Orders have also been given to keep a watch on the agency that has been appointed to repair potholes,” the official added.