DIBRUGARH, Jan 25 - Residents and businessmen along two arterial roads of Dibrugarh, the Convoy Road and the Bordoloi Avenue have been facing endless harassment by PWD contractors who have dug up roads and drains and have not completed the works for almost a year. It is strange that neither the PWD nor the police have taken cognisance of the matter.
During the process of digging up the drains (for improving these, ostensibly), the devil-may-care-no-less attitude of the contractors� workers by snapping telephone cables, piped gas connections and mobile phone cables and conduits, has severely disrupted civic life.
Moreover, when the contractors spring to life to do some work, they do it in such a way that severe traffic jams are triggered. Following opening of the Bogibeel bridge on Christmas Day last year, Dibrugarh has been witnessing huge traffic jams every day on the city�s narrow streets.
Asked if the works could not be done after about 9 in the evening to save the citizens from massive traffic snarls, one contractor, Prasanta Saikia said he cannot do this. He said contractors in Guwahati are paid two per cent extra for late evening work. He expressed his helplessness on the traffic snarls.
Harassment to the residents and road users apart, improvement of the Convoy Road and Bordoloi Avenue here is taking way too long to be completed. Work started in March last year, and till date, less than ten per cent of the work has been completed. Contractors blame the delay to non-payment of their running bills, while the PWD engineers appear interested in their share whenever some payments are made.
There is no quality of work monitoring, nor any public notification of the scope of work. In the case of the latter, atleast interested citizens can keep vigil.
