The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Potholes surface on Shiradi Ghat road

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Thursday, Jul 10, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Potholes surface on Shiradi Ghat road

M. Raghuram

Repairs taken up at a cost of
Rs. 35 crore
The road was opened to traffic in last week of May

Back to square one: The recently repaired stretch of Shiradi Ghat has been damaged by overloaded lorries.

BANGALORE: Barely 40 days after the newly laid stretch of NH 48 at Shiradi Ghat was thrown open for traffic, the condition of the road has become bad. Potholes and patches have surfaced at more than 21 locations along the 35-km stretch.

Buses and trucks, whose movement on this stretch was banned ever since repairs works were taken up in October 27, zoomed once the road was thrown open in the first week of June. While the road was concretised at hairpin curves, other stretches were thoroughly asphalted at a cost of Rs. 35 crore. The stretch between Kappalli and Gundya, which earlier had craters all along, was fully re-laid. While the concretised parts are intact, the asphalted stretch has been torn off at 21 places.

Confirming that the condition of the road had become bad, officials in the National Highway’s Mangalore Division said that they had carried out quality checks at more than 30 places, before opening the road for traffic, in the last week of May. They said that the road surface cannot be retained when trucks carrying three times more than their laden weight were allowed to ply. The officials on conditions of anonymity said that trucks carry more than 45 tonnes of iron and manganese ore when they were supposed to carry only 16 tonnes.

The National Highways department has proposed to set up weigh bridges at both entrances to Shiradi Ghat (at Gundia and Sakleshpur). Tendering process is yet to begin.

The Public Works Department has indicated to the government that unless strict discipline on laden weight of the trucks of all classes was maintained, the quality of roads could not be ensured.

The contractors who carried out the road repairs on the Shiradi Ghat stretch have refused to give any guarantee on the maintenance of the road if the Government did not check overloading of trucks.

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