Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Sept. 1: In the face of accusing fingers pointed towards the concerned department for its inability to deliver good roads in the state, department of public work (PWD) today clarified that road maintenance works were kept on hold due to the vagary of monsoon.
It emerged that the Public Works Department (PWD) has not completely used the amount that the government had sanctioned to the department for road maintenance work in all the 12 districts of the state before the onset of monsoon.
It may be mentioned here that the People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA) in its first cabinet meeting on March 8 had promised to repair and renovate roads within 60 days. Accordingly, the government had approved INR 50 crore to the department.
It was on April 10, the minister of PWD, Tongpang Ozukum, in a press conference in Kohima, informed that the government had released the first half of INR 25 crore for repairing and renovation of roads in 12 districts headquarters.
Speaking to Eastern Mirror, chief engineer of Nagaland PWD, Limatongdang Jamir stated, “Before the monsoon we have listed out some of the prioritised roads in the 12 district headquarters and went ahead with the works. But, due to the rain, we could not continue further.” Although, quite a few stretches of roads repairing was done in almost all the districts headquarters, it is not possible to continue, he added.
He informed that the first half of INR 25 crore was not totally utilised owing to the works being kept on “hold.” When asked about the second half of INR 25 crore, which was yet to be released by the government, he stated, “even if it is released, how can we go ahead with the work” with heavy rain in the state almost every day.
Jamir said that the first half of INR 25 crore had already been distributed to the 12 districts headquarters. The money was distributed according to the length of the roads and in a “proportionate manner.” The districts with more road networks have a bigger share, he pointed out.
The engineer also highlighted on the practical inabilities to carry out the works because of the rain. Stating that bituminous works in the wet season is not advisable, he said “although improvements of roads are very important, we are now facing with bigger hurdles because of monsoon damages. We are trying to restore the roads where it has been cut off in so many places.”
He further assured that the department would continue with the road repairing work right after monsoon.
