D J Venkatesh
Diglipur, Feb 03: A few years back road side water pipelines were installed which people used for their daily needs, today due to modernization every household whether rural or urban needs personal (domestic) & shops need (commercial) water connections, which are provided by APWD in rural areas.
For this if any road cutting is required for the connections a fee of Rs. 500 to thousands is collected from public depending on the amount of cutting required.
Sadly, even though the fee is collected without miss, the filling is never done by APWD or Zilla Parishad.
In Diglipur, as the bazaar area ends, one can see that nowhere the road is filled, which were dug long back for providing water connections.
A rough survey was conducted by Andaman Sheekha team, after which it was found that in R.K.Gram, Krishnapuri, Sitanagar villages of Diglipur around thirty five road cuttings were done, and after road cutting the sites were forgotten by APWD.
Around three to four cuttings are filled by the public themselves, spending their own money instead of paying the fee to APWD.
It has been observed that the unfilled road cuttings go on becoming deeper and wider from inches to feet in week and feets to meters in years and these damaged roads are then not repaired again until next work order for the construction of road is awarded to a contractor.
The village roads are constructed on a Five Year plan basis which are not repaired during the five years again.
When Andaman Sheekha team contacted APWD for an official comment, the officials of APWD seemed shying away from media. However, sources in APWD told that in villages most of the roads are under Zilla Parishad and it is the duty of concern Pradhan to claim the road filling amount from APWD and fill the roads but that is never done. Neither Pradhan approaches the APWD nor the APWD hand over the money to concern Pradhan and hence public suffer for this confusion.
Hope someday the Secretary Panchayat will find some time to look into this matter and take some steps to fill all the roads, which are dug for laying water pipelines.
