The approval for road projects worth Rs 7,000 crore from the Centre for Goa comes as a pre-election gift for the State. It was also announced that since 2014, the Central government road development projects undertaken in Goa are to the tune of Rs 22,000 crore. Redevelopment of the highways in the State is very visible and so too are the new bridges and bypasses that have either already come up or are in various stages of construction. It is obvious that Goa is getting a massive makeover in road infrastructure and this was definitely required to ease the traffic movement on the roads. While new projects will improve the driving conditions, what happens after the projects have been completed? It is also obvious to the people that once a road has been constructed, there is very little maintenance undertaken, which results in the quick wear and tear of the surface.
To avoid this, it should be made a practice by the government – Central and State – to include in the tender documents penalty clauses for delays in completion of the project and also for the maintenance of the road after completion, and then enforce both these. It is not enough to merely have the clauses and then not enforce them. All projects are given a completion date but seldom are they completed and thrown open on that date or any date near that, resulting in cost escalations that come from the taxpayers’ contributions. Take for instance the new bridge over the River Zuari connecting Agassaim and Cortalim. It has already missed several deadlines, the last being Liberation Day 2021. It is currently being opened in phases that is easing the flow of traffic to a considerable extent, but the bottlenecks continue as there remain stretches that are still incomplete forcing vehicles to crawl after having zoomed over the completed portion of the road.
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Maintenance is another important clause that requires to be made obligatory in all tenders and not just for road construction. Goa, in particular, has a number of potholes on its roads that are recurring. Repair them and they return a few weeks or months later. Such was the condition of the Goan roads just three months ago after the monsoon that the government had to promise that not a single porthole would be seen on the roads after November 1, 2021. They were hastily repaired to meet that deadline, but in many places the potholes are back even though there has been no monsoon since the repairs. The fact is that the repair work was shoddy and the hotmix poured in the potholes has come out. There is also the example of the third Mandovi bridge of having had one of its arms closed to undertake repair work. The bridge developed huge potholes less than three years after completion.
All infrastructure is public property built with public money – from the taxes paid by the people. The government therefore remains responsible for maintaining the property. The citizens, of course have no right to deface or damage it. But, where maintenance is concerned, it is the contractors who undertake the construction that should be made liable to repair the roads for the damages that occur and also pay a fine. Similarly there should be a penalty clause for delays in completion of the project. This may ensure that the company will take extra care to build a road that will not develop potholes and also complete the project on the given date. Unless the government takes such measures, just building infrastructure will not help. In projects where thousands of crores of rupees are being spent there have to be liability clauses that will hold the contractor responsible.
