Due to heavy rains in Gujarat, 3610 km long roads of the state’s Road and Forest Department have been damaged. Repair work is going on on a war footing in Vadodara-Vapi, Rajkot-Jetpur, Chiloda-Himmatnagar and other roads. For this, Bhupendra Patel has given guidelines to work on a war footing and make the roads suitable for traffic again.
He informed that due to heavy rains, out of the total 1,16,000 km long roads of the Road and Building Department, 3610 km long roads have been damaged till September 1. Out of the damaged roads, instructions have been given to complete the repair work of the main roads of the district by September 7 and the repair work of rural roads by September 15.
This is how repair work is going on
The department is carrying out repair work on a temporary basis using GHB, dry metal and cold mix asphalt. The teams working at the regional level have been instructed to start repair work on a war footing. Not only this, the work in this regard is being conducted by the Chief Engineers under the guidance of the secretaries from Gandhinagar. The local collector, the minister in charge and the secretaries are reviewing the ongoing work in all the tehsils in coordination with the department. Permanent repair work will be done after the rain stops.
Assistance to human labour and machine force
At the regional level, repair work is going on on an immediate basis with the help of 731 JCBs, 699 dumpers, 557 tractors, seven Hitachis, 65 rollers, 14 loaders, 48 tree cutters and four pavers. A total of 466 teams with about 6487 workers are working for this. At the places where structures have broken, work has been started to restore traffic by making immediate diversions. At such places, traffic has been diverted to alternative routes and instructions have been given to install information boards for this.
Attention to the safety of workers and passengers
Regional offices have been directed to re-verify all other structures and take necessary safety measures. In the section where work is going on, department officials, employees and workers have been directed to wear jackets as part of safety and put up caution boards like ‘Work in progress’ while working.
Work going on on damaged national highway
Out of the total 2894 km long National Highway under the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), about 139 km long roads have been damaged. NHAI is working in collaboration with the state government to repair the National Highway. Under this, repair work is going on at a war footing in Vadodara-Vapi, Rajkot-Jetpur, Chiloda-Himmatnagar and other roads.
