Interestingly, this year amid the buzz of forthcoming Ganesh festival, the talk of the town was about PWD Minister Deepak Pauskar’s promise of filling up all potholes before Chaturthi. On Friday, his men and machinery were on the roads doing patchwork on a war footing. There was a sense of urgency and in some parts even traffic was brought to a grinding halt.
Ministers and MLAs launching hot-mixing works with pomp and ceremony is a common sight. But Pauskar choosing an auspicious occasion to time his road work is incomprehensible. This after watching helplessly for nearly three months as motorists endured the pain and agony of negotiating potholes, gravel and pools of water. Massive potholes doting the national highways and several other internal roads have been a very common sight. Why did Pauskar not take cognizance, and instead preferred to wait till Ganesh Chaturthi? Passing the blame on to the predecessor has been the most common refrain. We saw it during the recent Curti-Khandepar pipeline issue. If bad roads are attributed to Sudin Dhavalikar’s tenure, what was Pauskar doing since he took over in March this year. Five months later, nothing has changed, only the minister.
In fact, road works should be undertaken round the year. Providing safe and motorable roads is the sole responsibility of the PWD. Blaming it on the monsoon is not just acceptable. Rains cannot be an excuse to avoid maintenance, and road repairs should have been undertaken as part of the pre-monsoon works. This year, the delayed monsoon could only be a blessing in disguise on this count.
Responsibility has to be fixed and it is for Pauskar to come out with answers. Huge chunks of asphalt have been washed away in the first few drizzles. The sub-standard quality of road work stood exposed. It’s the PWD’s job to hold accountability since there is a work-guarantee undertaken. A case in point is the Margao-Panaji highway which is in the pits and the recently hot-mixed road in Khandola, Marcela, which has now become a virtual death-trap.
The fact that contractors are not pulled up for shoddy jobs is a clear indication of active connivance with officials. In some cases roads have not even lasted for one season, leave alone a year, and yet there have been no action taken. Where are the quality checks? And what is Pauskar’s team of engineers doing on work completion? There are serious compromises on quality, surreptitiously done even at the time of hot mixing and all of this is going unchecked. The PWD cannot be a partner is such clandestine loot of public money. Some of the old roads have still stood the test of time while the recent ones are crumbling. And this tells another story.
Systems can only fall in place if PWD is serious about the jobs tendered. It has to monitor execution at every level and cannot be a bystander. By undertaking pothole filling on the eve of Ganesh festival, Pauskar is only trying to temporarily cover up the anger and frustration of motorists.
