Rangareddy: Jalpally dwellers fume over faulty road works

Rangareddy: While the local leadership at Jalpally claims to have brought more roads in the municipality than earlier, the public say discrepancies in laying roads and faulty measurements are leading to water-logging and sewage overflow in several wards in this season.

Lashing out at Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration (CDMA) for approving roads in ULBs without making the contractors accountable for ‘discrepancies’, Samad Bin Siddiq, a former gram panchayat member, said, “be it an ordinary day of a rainy season, one can find sewage overflowing from septic tanks on roads and even in streets while water-logging has become common following rain. Contractors, who won road works, failed in taking appropriate scientific measurements before laying roads in Jalpally, an urban local body on the city outskirts.”

However, the municipal authorities are saying a total of 236 works have been sanctioned during the last three years; Rs.4,996.50 crore has been spent to develop roads in all 28 wards of the municipality. As per official figures, 1.56 km roads were laid spending Rs.1.24 crore in 2019-20. Similarly, 1.95 km road works were taken up with an outlay of Rs.1.66 crore in 2020-21. However, 2021-22 saw approval of works up to 11.84 km spending Rs.20 crore.

The figures show most works were approved in ward 9, where 14 works were taken up, followed by ward 8 with 13 works; ward 7 with 12 works in the last three years.

Disapproving the claims of officials, people in different wards said not more than one-two roads were laid in their wards with more than 6-10 streets each

“Many roads, especially in Pahadi Shareef area, are still unmetalled and causing inconvenience to the locals. The Pahadi Shareef-Mamidipally road, which was approved two years ago with a grant of Rs.3.10 crore sanctioned by the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, is arguably in a pathetic state; still throwing dust in the air,” bemoaned Syed Abdul Bari, a community activist.

“While Jalpally became a heaven for unruly contractors, the engineering section of the municipality keeps on patronising the perpetrators,” blames M Ravi Kumar,president, Weaver Cell, Ranga Reddy district. He demanded CDMA should take appropriate action against the contractors who are causing immense inconvenience to the locals with their faulty working.”