A resident of Sector 6 in Dwarka, Ravi Thakur, was riding on his scooter towards Palam on Thursday. Suddenly, his scooter went into a pothole and he lost balance. As a result, he fell down on the road. Thakur was clueless about how the accident happened.
The pothole, where his scooter fell into, was full on water after rain. Hence, he wasn’t able to make out about the pothole in the road. He suffered minor injuries on his knee and palm. The doctor has advised him a rest for a week’s time.
He is not the only one who became victim of the bad condition of the road. There are many other people like him who face such kind of situation everyday in Dwarka.
People said that the stretch, near Palam Flyover on master plan road number 201, had been in bad shape for more than two years and it is getting worse day by day. They said that DDA did filling of potholes after rainy season.
It was a temporary arrangement and now all the cracks and potholes have emerged again. The situation has exacerbated after Thursday’s rain. According to DDA, the tender for repairing work was finalised in December last year but it has not been repaired as yet.
Most of the master plan roads in the area are in bad shape. Dwarka Mor, Sector 3 turn, Ashirvad Chowk, KM Chowk, Sector 8/9 crossing, Sector 4/12 chowk, chowk near Rudra Apartments Sector 6 etc are the places where the surfaces of the roads are badly damaged. On request and complaints, DDA somehow filled the potholes with cement concrete but it has again got into bad shape.
Suman Malik, a resident of Sector 6 Youngsters Apartments said, “Such things are subject of regular monitoring and maintenance. As far as I know, there is no agency to look after the roads and its maintenance as the jurisdiction is in the middle of the two departments - DDA and PWD. In that condition, the situation becomes serious and we the community people are the sufferers.”
The damaged and broken roads across Dwarka are not being repaired for a long time due to departmental gaps in DDA, PWD and Municipal Corporation. Be it Master Plan roads across the sub city or the internal roads in the sectors, all need repairing and maintenance.
At many places, the condition is getting worse with the time. Some of the damaged portion have left unattended for more than three years. “The stretch from the signal of Sector 12/4 till Harmony Apartments is in bad shape. It is there for more than three years,” said Reeta Tiwari, a resident of Sector 4.
According to sources, the master plan roads, which had to be densely carpeted, have been left due to the handover and transfer process from DDA to PWD. They said that since the time state government came, all the roads with a distance of more than 30 meters had to be transferred to PWD but they did not do it.
“Processes were on to transfer the roads to PWD. But, it did not happen and communications stopped between the departments. Now, the things are in hold. In that case, neither we are in position to do anything nor they are taking interest,” said an official of DDA on the condition of anonymity.
DDA officials said that they sent letters to PWD but nothing happened. Corporation too approached to take the maintenance of the roads but again nothing effective happened in that direction.
The whole Dwarka is suffering with bad condition of roads. According to DDA, for repairing, the tender was called. But, still, there was no repair works. RWA and social organisations have been raising the subject in forums with the authorities but nothing happened.
