HC directive to officials on road laying work

Chennai, Dec 6 (UNI) Madras High Court today directed the Nilgiris District Collector and Chief Engineer of State Highways to appear before the court on December 11 in connection with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking appropriate action for carrying out road laying work from Mettupalayam to Kakkanalla via Coonoor, Udhagamandalam and Gudalur in Coimbatore and Nilgiris Districts.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Mr Justice K Chandru gave the above directive on a PIL filed by Nilgiris Bar Association represented by its President K Chandramohan.

In his PIL, Mr Chandramohan submitted all the roads in Nilgiris district were laid during the British Rule.

The government collects toll tax from every vehicle at Burliar, Kunjappannai, Nadugani and Theppakadu running in crores of rupees.

The toll tax collected was supposed to be spent on the maintainence of the roads but was reportedly diverted elsewhere, he charged.

He said the road had 'hairpin bends' and numerous blind curves and there had been hardly any maintainence work in the past several years.

The patch work alleged to have been done every season only added to the problem and the roads developed potholes to such an extent one had to strain to find even a metre's length of road.

In the past ten years, the roads became 'non-existent' in many places.

People had started avoiding Nilgiris due to the bad road conditions.

The bad condition of the roads had been further compounded by the recent rainfall and landslips and the lives of the people living in the hills had become a nightmare, he added.

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