NEW DELHI: “All vehicles crossing this area, including rickshaws, scooters and cars, stop here. Many rickshaws have overturned, and children have even suffered fractures,” said 55-year-old Burari resident Ramesh Pokhriyal while talking about the daily struggle residents have been facing for years as hundreds of them took to the streets on Sunday against the worsening condition of roads in the area.
The protest in the Burari area has brought renewed attention to a road crisis that the locals said has persisted for four to five years, with potholes, waterlogging and unsafe stretches making everyday travel nothing less than a hazard.
Residents are demanding immediate repairs and accountability from the authorities, but this is not the first time they have hit the streets. They had staged a similar protest on April 6, but the situation remained unchanged.
At the centre of the agitation is a roughly five-km stretch between Nathupura and the Burari bypass. Locals said several stretches of the road were riddled with deep potholes, some measuring 1.5 to 2 feet, leaving waterlogged patches that persist for days after rainfall during the monsoon.
Pokhriyal, who lives in Sushant Vihar near Ibrahimpur, said the problem has been aggravated by sewage and drainage works carried out along the main road. He said that the level of the sewage network is now higher than that of the road, which leads to the sewage water spilling back onto the carriageway whenever it rains.
The consequences, residents claim, have gone beyond inconvenience. They said vehicles frequently get stuck or overturn while negotiating the damaged stretches.
In a memorandum submitted on Sunday to the lieutenant governor’s office, residents demanded a ‘permanent solution’ to the road and waterlogging problems and sought completion of all pending works by September 16. They warned to strengthen their agitation if the promised work is not completed within the deadline.
Jitender Fulara, founder of Voices of Burari, the local group that organised the protest, said accidents had become a regular occurrence in the area. “Accidents happen daily. Two-three cases every day. Some have even died,” he said. The claims of deaths and the frequency of accidents, however, could not be independently verified by the newspaper.
According to Fulara, after the protest in April, residents were promised three months to address the problem, but the rains arrived without the repairs being completed.
Speaking on the matter, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from the Burari constituency, Sanjeev Jha, said that the government was working towards resolving the issue, but delays had occurred due to lack of coordination on tender-related issues between agencies.
A PWD tender document shows that a `72.64 crore project to remodel Burari’s main drainage network, including construction of a new precast drain, was cancelled on August 6 after all bids were rejected at the technical evaluation stage. It assumes significance as residents have repeatedly linked the worsening road condition to inadequate drainage system.
Jha has confirmed the tender cancellation. He said it was the third tender with no bidders participating in the process. For residents, however, the explanation makes no difference after years of living with roads that become increasingly difficult to use every monsoon.
