The Puducherry residents are upset over the slow pace of road work. Various key roads here have been dug up for laying pipes and the road relaying work is moving at a snail’s pace. Six months ago, the PWD officials have dug up most of the main roads and the by-roads,creating inconvenience to the public. PWD officials made it clear that it will take months to set right the road.
What is worrying the residents is that the relaying work has been taken up in a haphazard manner.
Venkatasamy,a resident of Chetty Street, said “There is no proper planning. Everywhere we can see boards saying ‘road closed for work’.They should have taken up the work one after the other so that the work would have been done by this time.”
Entry points to many of the streets are closed and no proper directions are put up in these areas. This creates confusion among the tourists as well as the residents. Sekar, a resident of Ambalathadayar Street said, they could have started the work in an organised manner. But the work on all the roads started at the same time. It is creating a lot of hardships to the road users. An Italian tourist who visited the place said that the place looks like a warfield.
Residents staying near roads also complained that the workers are damaging the walls and iron grids at the entrance of their house. “We need to spend a huge sum to set right the walls after all these works are over,” they said. When asked, a top official, who refused to give the deadline for finishing the work, said,” We will ensure that the work will be finished at the earliest.”