THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company (TRDC) has started renovating various stretches of city roads covering a total distance of 14km. The work has been progressing since the past week. The company, a concessionaire of the City Roads Improvement Project (CRIP), has started tarring 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 project.Works have been completed at the Kowdiar-Vellayambalam-LMS stretch and are in progress around the Secretariat and at the Enchakkal- Sreekanteswaram road. The works at other parts will begin soon, sources close to TRDC said.
The board is using advanced machinery to ensure speedy completion of the work. The works were scheduled to begin as the monsoon ends. As part of it, the top layer of the road was removed through the ‘milling’ process. However, less rainfall helped the authority to start the work sooner. TRDC hopes to complete the renovation by the end of July if the rain stays away.
“The tarring of a few roads has been completed. The first stretch was Kowdiar-Vellayambalam-LMS. The works on Enchakkal- Sreekanteswaram stretch are in progress. Similarly, tarring work around the Secretariat including the press club road is also in progress, said a top official of KRFB.
As many city roads were dug for the project, people had to travel on uneven roads. The 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.
When TRDC was tasked with resurfacing the roads in 2019, the company failed to complete the work. This year, they have agreed to finish it before August. 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 portions lacked quality because of 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 `17.74 crore. If the concessionaire fails to take up the maintenance, KRFB can undertake repairs and the company would be liable to reimburse one-and-a-half times the cost to KRFB.
CRIP was implemented to improve 42.067 km of city roads in 17 corridors under the build-operate-transfer model. The project was said to be completed within 32 months, with TRDC supposed to maintain it for 15 years. The project, though delayed, was completed in four phases.