Around 14 kilometres of city roads under the Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company (TRDC) will get a facelift soon.
The company, a concessionaire of the City Roads Improvement Project (CRIP), has begun removing the top layer of the rubberised road to resurface it as part of maintenance. The Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB) of the state public works department (PWD) is overseeing the resurfacing.
Though the summer rain has halted work in many areas, TRDC is confident about finishing the renovation by July-end. But the removal of the top layer has made commuting challenging through several stretches, mainly for two-wheelers.
As several roads were dug up for the Smart Roads project, people had to bear with travelling on bumpy roads. The 14 km of stretches under maintenance are Manmohan Bungalow-Kowdiar, LMS-Vellayambalam, Asan Square-Panchapura Junction, and LMS-Ayyankali Hall Junction, Enchakkal-Sreekanteswaram, Kerala University-Chackai, Vanross-Press Club Road, and the road around the Secretariat. A new culvert around Poonthi road is also part of the project.
A senior officer with TRDC told the media that efforts are being made to finish the renovation of all these roads by July-end.
The rain has disrupted, and postponed, the work. If the rain stays away, the renovation work can finish within 15 days, the officer said.
RFB general manager K J Satheesh Kumar told the media that the company failed to complete the work when TRDC was assigned for resurfacing roads in 2019. The TRDC has agreed to renovate the roads this time before August.
According to the bump integrator (BI) tests conducted in December 2016 and June 2017, under the supervision of an independent engineer, most corridors did not fall within the defined quality. However, TRDC had claimed that the tested portions lacked quality due to utility works.
At the same time, the PWD urged TRDC to take up the relaying work. Till the completion of work the PWD also withheld annuity payment.
TRDC gets a half-yearly annuity payment of Rs 17.74 crore as per the contract. If the concessionaire fails to take up maintenance work, KRFB can undertake repairs, and the company would be responsible to reimburse one-and-a-half times the expense to KRFB.
Under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, CRIP was implemented for the improvement of 42.067 km of roads in 17 corridors. The project was to be finished within 32 months, with TRDC supposed to maintain it for 15 years. The project, though stalled, was finished in four phases.