KOCHI: The dilapidated state of the untarred stretch of road between St Pius X Church on SRM Road and NK Sreedharan road in Pachalam has got motorists and commuters worried. Shop and home owners also complain about the dust kicked up.According to Paul Dias, a shop owner in the area, the 30-metre stretch has been left untarred for over a year now. He mentioned that commercial establishments in the area are losing out on revenue as people have stopped entering the stretch.
“The tarring was supposed to begin recently. It was called off following stiff opposition from V4Kochi — the apolitical group which contested this year’s elections — backed by a few residents who approached the High Court. They feared that it would lead to waterlogging in low-lying areas,” he said.
P S Bhasi, former secretary of Ernakulam District Residents Associations Apex Council (EDRAC), said that the road was dug up by the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) earlier for laying new pipelines as part of the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme to provide drinking water supply in the Pachalam area. “Tarring was completed on all adjacent roads, but this stretch is repeatedly being ignored,” Bhasi said.
He added that a proper network is necessary to address the waterlogging issues. A member of V4Kochi said that they opposed the tarring work due to the corporation’s failure to remove debris from the road, which could have increased its height and flooded the nearby regions. “According to the conditions of the contract, the material should be removed so that the old level of the road can be maintained. We also complained to the corporation about the same which yielded no results.
This forced us to approach the High Court”, he said.According to former Pachalam councillor Albert Ambalathingal, KWA, which was supposed to complete the work of laying the pipelines by March, handed the stretch over to the corporation only in August.