BHUBANESWAR: At a time when civic administration of the Temple City is charged up for the Smart City race, lackadaisical work of National Highway (NH) Division, Odisha on a drainage project here has thrown citizen-convenience off the gear.
Storm water drains outlining the Lewis Road dug up arbitrarily for months together reflect that neither NH officials nor the concessionaire have any accountability or deadline.
The area stretching between Kalpana Square and Ravi Talkies Square is undergoing expansion. The work was started around a year back and the contractor was responsible for construction of storm water drains on the stretch.
However, the drain construction along the highway has been unscientific, lack civil engineering sense and is being carried out without proper supervision.
A case in point is a 15 feet long and two feet wide patch in front of Satya Sai Apartment which has been dug up. The contractor never bothered to communicate the residents of the apartment before starting the work which left their main entrance blocked for over two months.
Two days back, a pit of the same dimensions was created besides the existing one. The main sewerage line running below was broken spilling sewerage water into the pit. To add to the woes of the residents, the waste water pipeline of the apartment was also broken.
The area, which houses a nursery school, commercial complexes, ATM kiosks and private houses, is now contaminated with sewage water lying exposed in the open, posing serious health hazards.
In the process of widening the highway, the telephone and internet lines in the area were snapped. The protective boundary wall of an electricity transformer has been demolished but the Central Electricity Supply Authority (CESU) has cared two hoots to shift the transformer to a safe place or make temporary arrangement to shield it.
“Lack of communication among NH, CESU, Public Works Department (PWD) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has snowballed into a major headache for the people of the area. When approached, each authority passes the buck to another,” president of Satya Sai Apartment Owners’ Association Anup Mohapatra said.
Dug-up stretches of the same shape which remained open for months together were used for dumping garbage by locals. By the time those pits were covered with concrete slabs, half of its height was covered with solid waste which reduced water retention capacity of the drain.
“RKD Constructions was awarded the contract. It has sublet the drainage work to petty contractors who have maintained poorest standards,” local Corporator alleged.
According to sources in the Works Department, after the Puri bypass under the NHAI became functional, the work of widening of Rasulgarh-Samantrapur stretch of NH has been neglected.
There is a proposal that the expansion work would shift to the State PWD, a senior engineer of the PWD said.