It was nearly one-and-a-half years ago that the Corporation authorities had hosted a Road Conclave to draft a proper plan to modify and maintain the roads in the city.
However, though the recommendations and suggestions were included in the annual budget of the Corporation for the year 2012-13, none of it materialised. It was in September 2011 that the Road Conclave was organised.
The conclave had mooted three major suggestions to improve the conditions of the roads.
The first one is the construction of designer roads since the roads in the city were decided years ago and without proper assessment on the geological conditions. The idea was to design roads after analysing the climatic conditions, specialties of the land and weather conditions.
“The density of traffic will be high in some areas and the feasible idea is to construct concrete roads. Similar is in the case of roads in the areas that are easily vulnerable to water-logging. The laying of roads should be done after conducting soil tests and with the support of apt technology,” experts said.
Road Annuity Scheme
The other major recommendation by the experts from Central Road Research Institute is introducing road annuity scheme. “Under the scheme, the civic body can entrust an agency with the building and maintenance of roads for a stipulated period, by making an annual payment to them. The major benefit of the scheme is that the contracts will be more composite in nature as the responsibility of maintenance will be fully with the contractor or the agency that undertakes the work. It will ensure that the roads are operated and maintained according to specific standards,” experts said.
The system will also ensure timely repair of the roads and if the quality of construction is not up to the mark, the developer will have to shell out more money later by way of maintenance.
White surfacing
The third major suggestion was white surfacing of roads which is done by applying a thin layer of special concrete over the completed roads. The process will add to the durability of the roads and is a major practice done in some other states like Gujarat where the condition of roads are much better.
“However, after the much-hyped Road Conclave, the authorities have not taken steps to carry these recommendations forward. All it needs is a slight push but that is not happening in many of the ideas mooted by the Corporation. That is why many of these plans still remain on papers,” said M Anilkumar, former works standing committee chairman and Opposition councillor.