Click to see if your road is up to the mark

Times of India: Chennai: Tuesday, 05 May 2015.

When the corporation said it had spent close to 2,000 crore on roads in the last three years, many eyebrows were raised. Now, here is a chance for you to check if the civic body is stating the facts. The corporation has uploaded details of 6,845 recently completed road projects on its website. Citizens can access the data on chennaicorporation.gov.in and check the ward-level list of roads with supporting photographs.

A senior corporation official said details of the remaining roads would be uploaded in a few weeks. "The idea is to inform residents about the newly-laid roads so they can crosscheck with the real situation. They can also inform us if it gets damaged. It will also help us monitor the quality of work," said a corporation official.

Civic records show that the corporation spent nearly 2,000 crore to lay close to 15,000 roads since 2012 in the city. The increase in the expenditure is attributed to the expansion of the corporation limits from 174sqkm to 426sqkm. Civic activists welcomed the move and urged the civic body to upload the guarantee period of the built road, cost of the project, contact information of the contractor and the supervising officer on its website. "There has been public outcry about the poor quality of work of the corporation. There has been corruption and a lack of transparency in awarding contracts. A facility to know the durability of a road will bring accountability, but they should also upload the details of length, breadth and thickness of the road," said V Gopalakrishnan, a civic activist.

Kodambakkam Resident's Association vice-president D Balaji said the civic body should also hire an independent agency to check the quality of roads laid by contractors. "There should be a system through which residents can lodge complaints about poor quality work, and also track the complaint. The corporation should also disclose the list of contractors blacklisted or penalised for poor quality work," he said.

Experts say the civic body should conduct inspections to make sure contractors follow road relaying norms set by the Indian Roads Congress and conduct checks the quality of the material used. Indian Roads Congress guidelines say a newly-laid road should last at least five years, but most roads in the city become unusable within six months of being re-laid.

TOI has been highlighting the need for the disclosure of work details under RTI Act on the corporation's website. In the absence of such a system, some roads are being left out of the plan, while some others are repeatedly re-laid.