As MC 'sleeps', residents build road on their own

LUDHIANA: Irked by the "lackadaisical behaviour" of the civic authorities towards developmental works in Ward 1, its councillor and residents came together to build the service lane in the area on their own.

Councillor

Randhir Singh Sibia

, belonging to

Simarjit Singh Bains

group, said the road stretch measuring 366m in length has been re-carpeted at a cost of Rs 10 lakh. The money was contributed by him and residents, he added.

Sibia alleged that the file for re-carpeting of road had been gathering dust at municipal corporation offices for the last around a year forcing residents to take up the task on their own. He further alleged that the

Praveen Bansal

of the BJP was pressuring the authorities just to take the credit of the developmental works.

Sibia said the service lane, originating from Jalandhar bypass area, was the only way to reach his ward, but it lying in pathetic condition for long. "However, when we started constructing the road on their own, the authorities visited the spot. SDO and JE-level officers came to the spot, but they never stopped the work," claimed Sibia.

Further Sibia claimed that around 30,000 people use the road on a daily basis. "The potholes on the road had led to accidents in the area, but no officials cared about the same," he alleged.

Harkirat Singh, a resident of

Aman Nagar in Ward

1, said they had seen this road in a pathetic condition for years, but nobody cared to repair it. Further he said that they stood with the councillor as the authorities failed to do anything in this regard. He alleged that the authorities who had come to stop the work on Saturday should have visited the area in the past and taken steps to repair the road. Former president of Ludhiana BJP Praveen Bansal also refuted the allegations against him, saying that he had allotted development projects worth crores for the north constituency and why would he stop the developmental works.

Superintending engineer of MC Pawan Sharma refuted the allegations against the authorities saying that nobody worked under political pressure. He said getting a proposal passed in the civic body generally takes some time. But as the councillor has re-carpeted the road at his own level, he would be responsible for its quality, the SE added.

Sibia alleged that there are many other development works which have been put on halt by the authorities under political pressure.

In the coming days, the residents will stage a protest in front of MC offices and will lock the offices if the works in their ward are not started, the councillor said.