Worn out roads make travelling risky

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 20

Residents are highly affected as roads across the city are in an ailing condition. Repair work in most of the areas could not be carried on due to financial crunch.

The Municipal Corporation, Bathinda, (MCB) had spent Rs 73 crore on laying new roads and recarpeting the old ones in the city last year.

Bathinda Tribune today took a round in the town and found a number of roads in an ailing condition, which is posing a threat to commuters, especially two-wheelers.

The areas in which the roads are worn out are Bibiwala road near DAV School, Power House Road turning towards the Children’s Park road stretch, Sukhpeer road, Civil Lines, Thandi Sadak, Jogi Nagar, Partap Nagar, Paras Ram Nagar and Lal Singh Basti among others.

Roads are in a bad shape not only in under-developed areas or old city localities but also in posh residential localities.

Empty coffers of the Municipal Corporation have compounded the situation as the civic body doesn’t have funds even for carrying out patch work, which costs a couple of crores.

The potholes not only damage the four-wheelers, they have also become a primary reason for accidents.

The situation worsens at night in the trans-railway line area where cyclists and motorcyclists, unaware of their existence, lose their balance.

It has been seen that auto-rickshaws often overturn and two-wheelers skid, causing injuries to commuters.

Rajiv Kumar, a city resident, said, “Roads are in very bad shape. I wonder why governments are not doing anything on this. The issue is related to the safety of the commuters, due to which the roads should be repaired at the earliest.”

Another resident Gurmeet Singh said the condition of some roads was so bad that accidents are a possibility, especially at night when visibility is little low.

An MCB official said the work on repairing road would be done soon. However, he did not specify the dates.