Haphazard resurfacing of Apte Road after drainage works irks commuters
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Pune: Shoddy reinstatement work on a stretch of Apte Road has irked regular commuters, who are facing difficulties negotiating uneven chambers and gaps developed in the concreting done for post-project resurfacing.
The civic administration had recently initiated major drainage line works on the road, which were completed in March. Subsequently, the road surface was reinstated, but within two months, road users started facing hardships.
Commuters said that while the flow of drain water has stopped, rainwater has been accumulating at various spots owing to inadequate provisions.
Ajay Kale, a regular commuter, said reinstatement works are not done properly.
"Early rain has deteriorated the road condition. We fear that the situation will worsen during the proper monsoon due to poor quality repairs," he said.
Drainage work was underway here for almost two months, starting from the Deccan Gymkhana end towards HDFC Bank chowk. Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had replaced old pipes with new ones that have a bigger capacity.
Commuter Rishi Deshmukh pointed out that the civic body concreted the dug-up patch instead of re-tarring.
"We can see that the concrete patch does not match the rest of the tar road. Gaps have developed within two months and now look like potholes. The road surface has become uneven; it has hardly reached the status of how it was before the work was undertaken," he asserted.
Deshmukh added that the problem is not confined to Apte Road. "The situation on other roads in the city where reinstatement has been done is mostly similar," he told TOI.
Many commuters also highlighted that vehicular movement on Apte Road has gone up in the last few years as commercial activities have increased in the area.
Civic officials, meanwhile, claimed they would carry out inspections of the road, and take up repairs in the next few days. "We will check the status of the reinstatement and initiate repairs accordingly. Some chambers were repaired recently; road repairs will be extended to other locations as well," officials from the road and drainage departments of PMC said.
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