Srinagar, July 8: The Roads and Building (R&B) department’s unwillingness to work at night hours, something feasible for macadamization across the country, is victimizing the Srinagar roads not only because of daytime hindrance in vehicular movement, but  also by hitting the blacktopping quality. And this could be a reason as to why most roads end up in potholes within months of the layering in this summer Capital.
 The R&B’s approach mocks at government claims of gearing up developmental works in Srinagar during summers, the only time when roads can be blacktopped in this cold region.
 This equally negates the assertions of Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, who also holds the R&B portfolio, that work on developmental projects, be taken up during night hours as well so that best of the benefits could be reaped in a stipulated timeframe.

THE TRAFFIC MESS
 Given the fact that City roads are congested, daytime blacktopping hinders traffic movement because either the complete road or at least a portion of it remains closed for traffic thereby furthering the congestion.
 A senior Traffic police official acknowledged that the daytime road works have been a major cause of traffic jams in the City this year.
 This has been the state-of-the-affairs despite the fact that government claimed to be extra vigilant to ensure smooth flow of traffic after reopening of Durbar offices while the state Chief Secretary Madhav Lal and the Director General of Police K Rajendra have been directing their officials to show preparedness.
 But the R&B attitude seems to be playing a spoilsport and may badly affect the slated expenditure of Rs 70 odd crore on the blacktopping of City roads this year.

THE TIPPER MESS
 As if the routine traffic flow wasn’t enough that the movement of tippers ferrying the material from the hot mix plants, add up to the mess.
 “Entry of big vehicles into City during daytime means like allowing traffic jam to prevail on roads,” said an expert on traffic management.
 And then such load carriers have to be allowed, though after a proper permission, to move at will given the fact that works are untaken at multiple places across the City, including major roads.
 For that matter the road outside the Civil Secretariat remained no exception because it too was blacktopped during daytime.

THE BUSINESS TROUBLE
 Keeping in view the traffic flow particularly when VIPs are moving, the police at times disallows the tippers to venture around. At times they have to wait for hours together. This not only leads to delay in their reaching the work sites, but also affects the quality of macadam.
 President, Hot Mix Plants Owners Association, Bashir Ahmed Khan said the processed material, which is loaded into the tippers at the plant needs to be utilized within four hours.
 “It’s dumped into tippers at 140 degree Celsius and needs to reach the destination without any disruption,” Khan said.
 There’s another problem with the ferrying of the macadam. Contractors said requisite number of tippers weren’t given permission for movement. “For a site where 20 tippers should be allowed, we have permission for mere four…This, all the way delays the work and at times even causes loses,” said a contractor.

THE LOSES
 A delegation of contractors said they suffered heavy loses “when the entire truckloads of macadam got waste because they couldn’t reach the site in time.”
 “Each such truckload costs around Rs 70,000 and 10 truckloads of mine got waste because they couldn’t reach the site given the restrictions enroute,” he added.

THE QUALITY AFFECTED
 Experts said movement of people and traffic where blacktopping  is being done affects the work quality.
 “While laying of blacktop and consolidation by power roller, there should be no local intervention like public movement or traffic,” he said. “But what happens is that movement of tyres and other things spoils the tracks. Anybody can check it that depressions on the newly blacktopped roads don’t match with the road profile,” explained a R&B engineer requesting not to be named.

THE REMEDY
 Experts said the remedy to the problem lies in the blacktopping of roads at night much the way it happens elsewhere in India.
 While the contractors are willing to work at night adding that they have requisite infrastructure in place, the R&B has some objections. The department officials have a self-satisfying belief that nighttime wasn’t ideal for blacktopping in “cold place like Kashmir.”
 “We would take up works at night but then the timings are aren’t feasible,” said a senior official in the R&B requesting not to be named.

THE DARK SIDES
Roads are not wide enough to accommodate tipper movement and regular traffic at daytime and so the mix of two causes chaos
Material loaded at hot mix plants needs to be utilized within 4 hours but at times gets delayed due to traffic restrictions thereby affecting the macadamization quality and causes losses worth millions to contractors as well
Given the congestion, work gets delayed as Traffic police doesn’t give permission to adequate number of tippers as required
(Source Experts)

Lastupdate on : Sun, 8 Jul 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 8 Jul 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 9 Jul 2012 00:00:00 IST