Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, April 24: Call it a failure of Engineering or lack of co-ordination between various government agencies the New Pahargaon road still remains closed and unusable even after two long years.
According to reports, 2 years ago due to heavy rain and earth cutting inside the Veer Savarkar International Airport campus, the road opposite to Sapna Theatre, caved in following which the work for retaining wall was started by the Airport Authority of India and with the order of the Deputy Commissioner the road was kept closed for the road users.
Struggling due to the closure of road since last two years, the residents of the area alleged that despite of the fact that the road is in the very prominent area that connects Bhathubasthi to Corbyn’s Cove, the authorities didn’t even took up the work in the first priority, following which hundreds of daily road users have to face a lot of hardship.
“We have to go all around the area to reach a destination, which we could have reached within minutes if this road is opened,” said Mr Angshuman Roy a resident of the area.
“Our children are the worst hit because of the closure of road their time gets wasted as they reach home after taking a round trip of the area,” said another resident of New Pahargaon area.
When contacted the Executive Engineer, APWD, Er Linguraju said that the work for construction of road has not been started yet just because the site has not been handed over by the Airport Authority of India yet. “As soon as the AAI hands over the site to APWD, the department will start the work in no time,” Er Linguraju said.
When Andaman Sheekha contacted the General Manager, Project, AAI, Mr Prabhudeva, he said that the existing work for constructing the retaining wall has been completed and soon the AAI will hand over the site to APWD.
Now the question is when the work of retaining wall is over, why it has not been handed over to the APWD yet by AAI? Was AAI waiting for media reports against them?
With the statement of the officers of both the departments it is very clear that just because of a lack of Co-ordination how thousands of people are suffering since last two years.
This work could have been completed within a year if one agency was involved but due to involvement of more than one agency the people of the area are suffering for more than two years.
