The joggers track was meant to encourage people to jog andkeep fit. But the fitness of the track itself has come under a cloud.
The 1 km long jogging track costing over Rs 1.5 croreoutside the Nehru Stadium, Fatorda is falling apart.
The astro turf granules on the track have started to peeloff from its binding even before the project has been completed.
Over 400 people jog on the track at different times of the day.
Work on the project began way back in 2011. The work gotdelayed, as SAG awarded the contract to three different contractors.
When V M Prabhudessai was the SAG director, work to build acement fence, erect lamps and concretizing of the joggers track valued at Rs 75lakhs was awarded to one contractor. The contract to lay the astro-turf wasawarded to another contractor.
“This is a two months job that has been dragged to twoyears. I can’t understand what is the delay when the project is alreadycleared” said SAG Director Elvis Gomes.
Every morning joggers have to zig-zag to avoid the damagedsurface. There are also two 200 meter stretches on the track where work hasbeen abandoned.
After being sworn in as the Sports Minister in April, RameshTawadkar made a surprise visit to the stadium and inspected work on theastro-turf.
Despite a warning from the Sport Minister, the astro-turfwork still stands incomplete.
Manoj Hede of Karthik Fitness who had bagged the contractblamed other contractors for the sorry state of affairs of the track.
“The work is stoppedonly because of the monsoons. We can’t put the tarred granule surface and thetop coat of astro-turf. Once the monsoon stops we’ll immediately finish worksby November”, Hede said.
