THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: 14 kilometres of city roads under the Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company (TRDC) will get a facelift soon. The company, a concessionaire of the City Roads Improvement Project (CRIP), has started removing the top layer of the rubberised road to resurface it as part of periodical maintenance. The Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB), of the state public works department, is supervising the resurfacing.
Though the summer rain has halted work at many places, TRDC is hopeful of completing the renovation by the end of July. But the removal of the top layer has made commuting difficult through several stretches, especially for two-wheelers. In some places, scooters tend to slip, causing accidents.
As many city roads were dug up for the Smart Roads project, people had to bear with travelling on uneven roads. The 14km of stretches under maintenance are Manmohan Bungalow-Kowdiar, LMS-Vellayambalam, LMS-Ayyankali Hall Junction, Asan Square-Panchapura Junction, Kerala University-Chackai, Vanross-Press Club Road, Enchakkal-Sreekanteswaram, and the road around the Secretariat. A new culvert near Poonthi road is also part of the project.
A senior officer with TRDC said efforts are on to complete the renovation of all these roads by the end of July. “The intermittent rain has disrupted, and delayed, the work. But we have the machinery and the workforce to ensure the work is finished on schedule. If the rain stays away, we can complete the renovation within 15 days,” the officer said.
When TRDC was tasked with resurfacing roads in 2019, the company had failed to complete the work. But this time, the TRDC has agreed to renovate the roads before August, said KRFB general manager K J Satheesh Kumar. According to the bump integrator (BI) tests conducted in December 2016 and June 2017, under the supervision of an independent engineer, most corridors did not fall within the prescribed quality. However, TRDC had argued that the tested portions lacked quality due to utility works.
At the same time, the PWD directed TRDC to take up the relaying work. The PWD also withheld annuity payment till the completion of work. As per the contract, TRDC gets a half-yearly annuity payment of Rs 17.74 crore. If the concessionaire fails to take up maintenance work, KRFB can undertake repairs and the company would be liable to reimburse one-and-a-half times the cost to KRFB.
CRIP was implemented for the improvement of 42.067 km of city roads in 17 corridors under the build-operate-transfer model. The project was to be completed within 32 months, with TRDC supposed to maintain it for 15 years. The project, though delayed, was completed in four phases.
