The Kharghar residents have taken it upon themselves to survey the condition of internal and service roads of sector 30 to 39. A group of citizens and activists have commenced travelling through the nodes early in the morning to examine the condition of the roads and data is being collated to be presented to the Panvel municipal commissioner.
The survey is being done by members of Kharghar Taloja Colony welfare association (KTCWA) , a group formed by citizens residing in colonies of Kharghar, Taolua phase 1 and II.
The citizen action is the result of the municipal body coming out with tenders to undertake a major road repair and concretization work in the area “There is a multi crore road repair work rolled out by the municipal corporation. The road repair work estimated to be around 700 crore is to be used for resurfacing and concretization of every road falling under the corporation. We thought that in the wake of such a major project it is necessary to check upon the condition of the roads and inform the municipal body of the exact areas where the work needs to be done,” said a Shiv Sena Panvel vidhan Sabha coordinator and founder of the KTCWA Mangesh Ranawade.
The early morning survey process was started from January 5 and will conclude by January 9. The team of 10 odd are covering parts like the Central park, Kharghar societies, Taloja phase 1 and 2 as well as Owe village.
“The plan is that by Thursday all the sectors that come under ward no 3 of Kharghar will be surveyed. Photographs are taken of the road which is in bad condition or of the area where proper roads are not laid either. Along With the photographs the exact location procured through GPS is also being recorded. The data will then be presented to the municipal commissioner so that road repair work by PMC is completed as per the needs of residents and not as per the likes of the contractor concerned,” adds Ranawade.
In future the team will undertake similar surveys of the remaining parts of the city. Meanwhile preliminary findings of the team are that almost 75 percent of the internal and service roads of the city are in need of repair works.
“Besides personally going through the roads we are also interacting with the residents on the initiative. We don’t want the municipal corporation to randomly dig up good roads while neglecting the roads, especially in the internal areas that need to be repaired urgently. The data will be a handbook for the corporation to do work which will be appreciated,” said member of the association Jyoti Nadkarni.
