With Kochi Mayor Soumini Jain herself coming out and protesting against the bad state of roads in the city, the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) has agreed to deal with the issue on a war-footing.
About a dozen roads in the city have been lying in a dilapidated condition for the past several months. Many of these roads were in good shape till the KWA broke them open for various works. But these have not been repaired in a timely manner and have been left in shambles for commuters to suffer.
Mayour Soumini Jain on Monday conducted a sit-in protest in front of the KWA chief engineer’s office in Ernakulam, demanding the KWA repair the roads. The sudden protest by the Mayor and members of Kochi Corporation was the result of complaints given by commuters and repeated news reports on roads filled with potholes in the city.
Pandit Karuppan Road, Thammanam-Pullepady Road, Subash Chandra Bose Road, Gandhi Nagar Road are some of the roads which are in bad shape because of KWA works. When TNM had earlier contacted Kochi Corporation officials to enquire about the repair works, officials had cited KWA as the reason for the state of affairs.
“KWA had cracked open many roads in the city for various works of theirs. KWA had not paid any heed to the multiple requests of Corporation asking them to rectify the roads which they had destroyed,” stated Soumini Jain in an official release. Congress leader and Ernakulam MP Hibi Eden also joined the Kochi Mayor in the protest held on Monday.
With officials of the local body agreeing to leave the KWA office only after getting a satisfactory answer to the issue, the KWA gave a written statement promising to repair the roads within a stipulated time.