GUWAHATI: Residents of HC Road and Jorpukhuri Road in Uzan Bazar have been suffering for the past five months in the absence of a proper road. The 300-meter stretch has been in a pathetic condition due to the slow pace of construction of its footpaths.
In the absence of a proper road, the residents and the owners of the commercial outlets have expressed their woes.
Diganta Baruah, a street vendor who has been working here for the past few years told G Plus, “The construction work is going on for the past five months, but the progress is really slow. The footpath is the only thing that has been constructed in all these months.”
He added, “Whenever it rains, we face a lot of problems due to water logging. The water level rises to such an extent that it gets into my room too. The number of potholes has increased. People cannot walk freely and due to stagnant water a lot of small accidents also take place.”
His business partner added, “When the vehicles pass from here the water splashes all over and the pedestrians face the brunt of it. The PWD contractors have accumulated huge piles of stones all over the stretch in the last week and have not showed up thereafter t get the work ahead.”
He added that even he met with an accident last week and said that the work needs to speed up. “I see school children struggling every day here, and the aged people struggling a lot just to get to the other side safely,” he mentioned.
On the other hand, Abhijit Deka who owns a pharmacy located on the same stretch of road told G Plus, “My shop is not situated at the road level, so there are fewer chances of the water getting inside. Still when the water clogs, there is always the chance of water splashing on the customers visiting my shop.”
Residents have claimed that that the construction work has now stopped for the past several weeks. They mentioned that there have been several instances of people slipping and falling while trying to cross the road that is now normally filled with mud and sludge.
On the other hand, an officer in the Public Works Department (PWD), Dilip Hazarika, told G Plus, “The work would have been completed by the month of August but then ongoing work of laying down pipelines all over Guwahati is going on. That is again creating this mess for us.”
He added, “Due to the lack of coordination, we are never updated about their work. We always want our city to function smoothly but when it comes to priority between roads and water, people always go with water.”
The stretch of land that is under construction has a school too. There is always an inflow of students coming by different modes of transportation which creates chaos on the road, and creates a lot of traffic thereby making it an accident-prone area. The lack of coordination between the water pipeline companies and the PWD is developing to be a major concern for the city now.