55% of major roads repaired, Government to HC

KOCHI: The state government on Tuesday submitted before the Kerala High Court that 55 per cent of the state highways and the major district roads in the state had been repaired and the maintenance of the remaining roads would be completed on or before November 30.“The PWD Road Wing is doing the maintenance work of the state highways, and the major district roads together have an overall length of 23,241 km. Besides, the PWD is also acting as an agent to carry out the repair and other works of the national highways,” T Baburaj, chief engineer of Roads and Bridges, Public Works Department, submitted in the affidavit. It is also stated in the affidavit that 8,089 km of the road required urgent repair works.It is stated in the affidavit that a meeting of the executive engineers of all the districts was held following the High Court directive to complete the repair works of all the roads. “The meeting had chalked out concrete plans to complete the patch work. An amount `91 crore has been allocated by the state government for carrying out the works. The work was carried out on a war footing and the repair of 4472.336 km of roads had been completed as on October 14. The repairs of the remaining roads would be done before November 30,” the affidavit said. It is further states that the delay in repairing the works was due to reasons beyond the control of the PWD.Meanwhile,  Joseph K Mathew, chief engineer of the national highways submitted that 90 per cent of the national highways maintained by the PWD were completely pothole-free. The repair and maintenance of the remaining stretch would be completed on or before November 30. ROADS IN KOCHIAt the same time, the Kochi Corporation informed that it would complete the entire repair works on or before March 31, 2012.The court reserved its order on the petitions filed by the state government and the Corporation seeking to extend the deadline for completing the work. The court had issued the directive to complete the repair works of all the roads on a petition filed by C P Ajithkumar of Kochi within three weeks.