PALAKKAD: In a state where many roads start resembling the moon after a couple of bouts of continuous downpour, the 45-km-long Palakkad-Kulappully road is nothing short of a wonder. There is not a single pothole on almost the entire stretch even though 16 years have passed since it was laid in 2006. Laid almost entirely by Road Builders Malaysia (RBM), a firm from the southeastern country, the stretch was praised by the Kerala High Court recently for its quality of construction.
It was on November 7, 2002, that RBM went for a Rs 140-crore bid for two World Bank aided projects – the Palakkad-Kulappully road and the Kuttippuram-Choondal road. The deadline for completing the first road was 2004.
However, it was extended to 2006 owing to the delay in removing the pipelines of the Kerala Water Authority, power cables of the KSEB and telephone wires.
By the time 80% of the work was over, LDF came to power and withheld payments for the bill submitted by the firm in August 2006 saying the work was awarded by the previous UDF dispensation at a high cost per km. RBM, which received the last payment in July 2006, stopped the work.
Malaysian firm in fight with govt over arrears
The remaining 20% work, starting near East Ottappalam, was done by another firm.The difference, said regular commuters, is night and day as potholes have developed on the portion of the stretch laid by the second contractor. "This makes it clear that quality of the work is key for durability," said MS Rajesh, a board member of Kunchan Nambiar Memorial Centre under the Cultural Affairs department in Lakkidi. He commutes daily to Sree Sankara Oriental HSS in Lakkidi, where he is a teacher.
Upendra Narayanan, director of the Indian Institute of Road Safety, said Malaysia sees plenty of rain and so, firms from there like RBM possess the technology to build roads that can withstand continuous downpour.
"There should be a guarantee for every work undertaken by a contractor. Here, roads need to get damaged within a short period so that fresh contracts can be awarded for repair and both the contractor and the official concerned can reap the benefits," Narayanan said.
Dijo Kappen, a traffic expert, said the main issue is that PWD engineers are not interested in executing good work. For small maintenance works, tenders need to be floated and any contractor – mostly those favoured by officials – can be roped in,” he said.
Meanwhile, RBM’s legal fight with the government over payment of dues continues. After the firm stopped the work, the government dropped it from the project on December 6, 2006. The firm submitted five bills totalling Rs 10.5 crore and the total outstanding dues along with interests have now increased manifold.
RBM approached the Arbitration Tribunal and later the Thiruvananthapuram District Court and secured favourable verdicts from both. However, the government filed an appeal in the High Court and the case has been pending since 2015. RBM continues to maintain an office in Palakkad with skeletal staff to fight the case.
Meanwhile, almost every household in Palakkad and Ottappalam areas remembers the firm and what it did even today. "Theirs is a model worth emulating," said KS Suneesh, a postman in Mankara who takes road daily for delivering letters.