Public roads are being used as private godowns; Authorities refuse to take accountability

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What are made roads for? Even a kindergarten student will tell you it’s for communication of people, it’s for vehicles to run. In Barak Valley public roads are often misused by people, whenever there is a construction the public roads lose its purpose and turns to private godowns (warehouse). Often we get to see pile of sand, bricks and stones kept in the middle of the road.

How is this justified we asked the authorities? And they too believe that it’s not what a road should be used for but no one is ready to take accountability. Municipality officials told us this is something that comes under the district administration and they should take charge of freeing the roads from such pileups. District administration told us Municipality and PWD should take the responsibility, this passing the parcel is not helping Barak Valley at all.

Recently in National Highway road, an ambulance ran over the pile kept on the middle of the road and met with a dangerous accident. We all know the sad incident of 2010 when Narshing School teacher Anjan Bhattacharjee lost his life because of one such pile kept on the road. There are many more mishaps, which must be there in Police’s record books, yet no step is taken to clear the pile and ensure safe and clearer roads. The roads get more dangerous when it rains for a day or two; the sand becomes mud the stones skid like marbles leaving the road as a deadly stretch.

Deputy Commissioner S. Lakshman feels that the responsibility of roads falls under Municipality’s purview, but since the pile is causing citizens trouble the district administration can get involved and take some necessary actions. The PWD department informed us that a lot of the times citizen take permission to offload construction materials on the road for a few hours in the night, but later misuse the permission and keep the pile for days. “We then go and request them to clear the roads and that’s all we can do. We do not have the right to take any action,” said a senior PWD official.

That was district administration and PWD’s argument, Municipality’s point is hygiene is all that they are responsible for, “Cleanliness is what we are assigned to take care of, who has stocked what is not something we cannot do anything about. Having said so, if district administration decides to take any step to ensure roads are not used to stock building materials and in doing so if they need our help we would be happy to cooperate,” said Municipality Board vice-president, Chameli Paul.

While it’s true that the authorities are just giving a blind eye to the entire scenario for reasons best known to them, it’s also true that we human being for some short term benefits or luxury of ours are posing serious threat to others’ lives. Roads are for vehicles and people to commute they are not a private property that one can use the way he or she wants.