84% of potholes across U.P. roads levelled: Govt

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday extended the deadline to ensure pothole-free roads in the state from November 15 to 30th of the month. The deadline was extended by 15 days after authorities revealed that 84% of the potholes -- on 59,572 kilometres of road network -were levelled by November 14.

With just one day left in the previous November 15 deadline, it wasn’t feasible for the road authorities to fix the remaining 16% of road potholes in.

The concerned government order reads, “To provide smooth traffic to the public, a campaign was being run to make the roads pothole-free by 15.11.2022 in the entire state. However, in various districts of the state, due to excessive rainfall till the second week of October, there was a situation of floods and waterlogging. Besides, the Pollution Control Board (or the NGT) imposed a ban on construction/ repair works. Meanwhile, in certain districts, the work of cleaning silt in canals is in progress.

Sandeep Kumar, engineerinchief of the Public Works Department, confirmed the aforementioned government order saying, “Earlier, we were repairing around 2,500 km of road per day but now, we are working on more than 4,000 km of roads daily. Any laxity would not be tolerated.” HTC