Kolhapur roads need a ‘third eye’ to ensure quality

With civic polls approaching, fresh road works must be put under independent technical scrutiny to prevent a repeat of past failures

Kolhapur: With the drumbeat of the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections growing louder, the city is once again awash with digital hoardings of aspirants and announcements of fresh development funds. As is customary on the eve of civic polls, political parties are making lofty promises, while boards announcing allocations for asphalted roads have mushroomed across neighbourhoods. The ceremonial breaking of coconuts for these works is imminent.

However, given Kolhapur’s long and bitter experience with substandard road works, citizens must insist on a “third eye” — an independent and impartial oversight mechanism — even before the projects begin. Without this, there is a real danger that the asphalt being laid today will be washed away in the very next monsoon.

Bad roads have been a chronic affliction for Kolhapur. Over the past three decades, hundreds of crores of rupees have been spent on asphalting roughly 65 km of city roads. Yet, despite this massive public expenditure, the city has been left with roads of consistently poor quality, many of which fail to survive even a single rainy season. While public money has been splurged, and in many cases allegedly siphoned off, Kolhapur’s residents have borne the cost — in damaged vehicles, daily inconvenience and long-term health problems.

Road construction has effectively become a political game in the city. Funds collected through citizens’ taxes are openly plundered, and the lure of these lucrative contracts is one of the reasons many are keen to enter the municipal council. Only a few months ago, Kolhapur witnessed controversy surrounding road projects worth nearly Rs 100 crore. This makes it imperative that before any fresh funds are spent, road works are subjected to independent quality control and technical supervision.

There was a time when quality mattered. In 1980, during the tenure of the first general body of the KMC, protests were held demanding better roads, including a gherao of the corporation by auto-rickshaw drivers during the mayoral election. Some of the roads constructed then lasted for decades. Today, by contrast, roads barely last a year. There is neither the use of modern technology nor on-site supervision. A contractor-friendly system ensured that officials rarely visited work sites. The pattern has been depressingly familiar: roads deteriorate, citizens protest, inquiry committees are appointed — and nothing comes of it.

Generations suffered

Although legal guarantees are taken on paper for road works, the administration has consistently failed to enforce them or blacklist errant contractors. The result is that generations of Kolhapur’s citizens have suffered, quite literally, from back-breaking roads. With elections around the corner, it is time to demand accountability.

There are practical solutions. New roads in Kolhapur can adopt plastic-mix technology on the lines of national highways. For quality monitoring, reputed engineering institutions such as IITs, Walchand College of Engineering and KIT could be invited to take on an independent supervisory role through their civil engineering departments. Citizens should also demand display boards at work sites detailing the materials to be used, their quantities and construction methods.

Additionally, engineering graduates living in various localities can play a watchdog role by closely monitoring works and reporting deviations to the municipal commissioner. Ideally, the KMC should create an open web portal for real-time reporting and transparency.

If such measures are implemented, Kolhapur could replicate the transformation seen in cities like Nagpur and Thane, where sustained improvement in road quality earned then municipal commissioners widespread public acclaim. In fact, Kolhapur’s citizens may not hesitate to accord their civic chief a similar honour — provided the city finally gets roads worthy of a modern urban centre.