A day after cyclone Fengal wreaked havoc in the city and suburbs, the Highways department has taken up work to repair potholes and bad patches on its roads. Water logging and continuous running of vehicles at these locations has caused damage to the riding surface.
“As soon as the weather warning was issued, we had arranged for materials including cold mix and wet mix macadam, which is a mix of blue metal and quarry fine material. The latter is used in case of larger patches requiring repairs. Gangs of workmen cordoned off these points and repaired the roads. These are only temporary fixes to ensure the safety of motorists on these roads. Once the Northeast Monsoon is over, permanent repair works will be taken up,” said an official in the department.
Repairs were taken up on major roads such as Anna Salai, Poonamallee High Road and Jawaharlal Nehru Salai and roads like Velachery – Tambaram Road, MGR Salai, Mudichur Road, Madhavaram – Redhills Road and Tiruvottiyur – Ponneri – Pancheti Road. In some places road cuts had been made to allow water to flow out from nearby residential areas and those too were fixed on Sunday.
Manikantan, a resident of Velachery, said that repairs were welcome since two-wheelers were finding it very difficult to navigate potholes. “When there is water on the roads, we cannot see the holes. There have been instances of people falling down due to the bad patches,” he said.
“Not all roads suffered damages since of the 370 km length of roads with the department, 237 km of roads has drains on either side. It will take us two more days to finish the repair works,” explained an engineer. Water was pumped out from around 100 locations and by Sunday, there was no logging on Highways roads. The pumps will remain at these locations for some more time so that any logging from rains in the coming days can be cleared.
Published – December 02, 2024 12:58 am IST
