Deadline ends for GMADA, Airport Road still a misery
The deadline set by the Punjab Chief Minister’s special committee to make Airport Road’s six kilometre portion from Airport Chowk to the Landran-Banur road T-point (PR-9) motorable, is over. The road is lying closed, the repair work on it is yet to start. After missing the deadline, the GMADA authorities claimed that the repair work would start as soon as the weather improved. “The contractor, who had earlier constructed the stretch, has agreed to do the repair work free of cost. We will have to wait till the weather improves,” claimed GMADA Chief Engineer SK Kansal. The GMADA authorities, who maintained that the stretch had been “founded on black cotton soil” thus is beyond repair, actually wanted the contractor to repair and reconstruct the road free of cost, which the latter had denied and left the GMADA authorities in a fix. The measures that the committee directed GMADA to take included the patch work and crack sealing as per the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (India) specifications, provide sub-grade, base course and bituminous course wherever distress failure has occurred, laying of profile correction course (PCC) with specified bitumen wherever required and micro-surfacing in stretches that have small cracks. Notably, the stretch in question was closed by the authorities on September 18 following a series of fatal accidents due to the pathetic condition of the road. -PTC News
