Kakinada roads full of craters, potholes, puddles

Kakinada: Though the name suggests Kakinada is a Smart City, a close look at roads gives a different impression.

Driving on city road has become a nightmare for the motorists as they are riddled with potholes, craters and puddles. Whether it's thoroughfares or internal roads in residential colonies, the condition is same.

Though officials blame the incessant rains for the damaged roads,

the roads lack quality and strength. Even if they do repairs, they fail to give any relief to the road users. Under these circumstances, the roads are posing a threat to pedestrians as well as motorists.

Owing to lack of coordination and cooperation, the roads are often dug for installation of signalling and cables. Certain speed breakers are posing a threat to vehicular movement as they were laid without taking safety of the people into consideration.

Psychologist APJ Vinu said that the road from Sasikanth Nagar though RTO office to the dairy arm has an underground main water pipeline. Several times the road was dug to arrest leakage in the water pipeline. This road is damaged at RCM Church junction and Master Baker junction towards the dairy farm centre. He said that some of the roads in Kakinada are full of potholes and work in progress all time.

Due to lack of planning, even they don't put up radium stickers or cones. It turns out to be a nightmare for motorists to drive without knowing the new potholes. Adding to their problem, light is very low in Kakinada, he lamented.

Social activist D Subramanyam said that many political leaders are installing speed breakers on roads in front of their houses, causing unsafe driving for bikers.

Kakinada Municipal Corporation Superintendent Engineer P Satyanarayana Raju said that they are going to fill up the potholes and provide safe roads for the pedestrians as well as the vehicle users.

Kakinada Municipal Corporation Commissioner Swapnil Dinakar Pundkar said that the problems relating to roads have been brought to their notice and they are going to repair them very shortly by adopting new techniques of instant repair. He said that this technique is not adopted elsewhere.

He said that owing to the rains, they are unable to attend to the road repairs immediately. But they will soon take up the work asrains subside. He happily informed that the cable laying has been successfully completed in the main road and assured of completing it elsewhere very shortly.