Srinagar, Jan 19: The recent snowfall has brought to fore the substandard material used by the Road and Buildings Department and improper techniques adopted for the construction of roads in the Valley.
 Like every year, the state government spent crores of rupees to upgrade roads and expand road infrastructure in many areas but common man is up in arms against lack of accountability in the state administration.
 “Every year they macadamize the roads but after every winter season big pot holes and craters reappear. We fail to understand what the government is up to. It has become a tradition to macadamize the road every year. It seems contractors deliberately use sub-standard material,” said a college lecturer, Mujeeb Ahmed Bhat of SafaKadal Srinagar.
 “Perhaps some contractors would admit to being happy to keep on doing the patchwork as this ensures a ready flow of work. But it results in the loss of crores to state exchequer.”
 A top official associated with Roads and Buildings who wished not to be named confirmed that repairing of potholes every year has hit the infrastructure of roads in Kashmir badly.
 “The repairing of potholes everywhere poses a challenge to the department. At times we have to utilize the entire budget for repairing these. Now we have devised a strategy to keep 25 percent of allotted budget for pothole repairing,” the official added.
 Questioning the quality of work experts said, “Most roads in the Valley are not properly designed for the rainwater to be drained out. This causes potholes during the winter and monsoon period.  A tilt or slope of 2.5% from the median has to be maintained every 100 meters. In engineering terms, this is called cross slope, which prevents rainwater from becoming stagnant.”
 It is not only the poor technique but experts also blamed the poor drainage facilities and shoddy maintenance of the existing drainage systems as the primary reasons for potholes and poor quality of roads.
 Despite repeated attempts, Minster for R&B and Mechanical Engineering, Abdul Majeed Wani could not be reached.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Jan 2013 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Jan 2013 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:00:00 IST