Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

A delay that extracted a heavy price

The narrow ghat road near foot bridge that proved to be a veritable death trap.

VIJAYAWADA: Not paying enough attention to development works, particularly the widening of the ghat road, has undoubtedly contributed to the chaos. Revenue officials and the police, who visited the temple after the mishap, were unanimous in their view that had the ghat road been widened, the accident would not have occurred.

Despite several proposals and finalisation of tenders for the widening of the narrow road, which is the only path to reach the temple of goddess Kanakadurga, the project has not materialised so far due to many reasons.

Though it was a long-pending proposal, the file moved swiftly only after the completion of Krishna Pushkarams in August 2004. From then on, the proposal has been revised and re-revised several times and the plans got several clearances from the higher ups only to be not taken up in the end. The officials initially thought that the widening works could be completed at a cost of less than Rs. 1 crore. They later clubbed the works with boulder-grouting work, which would have to be taken up to stop hill slide on the ghat road. Consequently, the budget was raised to Rs. 2 crores. These two projects were later clubbed with proposals relating to tunnel, pilgrim amenities complex, a home for the aged and a Vedic school, as a result of which the budget was further raised to Rs. 23 crores.

Besides political reasons, frequent transfers of officials too have contributed to the inordinate delay in the works. Devasthanam’s Executive Engineer Koteswara Rao told The Hindu that a Mumbai-based construction company had bagged the contract for the widening of the ghat road at a cost of Rs. 2.1 crores, and it was planning to commence the works this month. “Once the works are commenced, the ghat road will have to be closed for six months. That is why they waited for the completion of Bhavani Deeksha Viramana,” Mr. Rao explained. The delay has proved too costly.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Walk for visually challenged today
They play with gusto
Blame game over Vijayawada temple tragedy
Abuse a child and invite trouble
A mountain of tragedy befell them…
Devotees blame it on officials
A delay that extracted a heavy price
Temple board, committee abolished
Tiranga Run will help market city, says MP
TDP demands judicial probe
Vijayawada Today

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu