Rains expose bad road conditions in Madurai

Madurai roads in poor condition post rains, residents complain of water stagnation, potholes, and sewage overflow.

The recent spell of rains has exposed the poor conditions of roads in Madurai. The rains left many roads inundated and this has become a perennial problem, the residents complained.

They say that many roads in the city were riddled with potholes and the recent rains have led to water stagnation. Sewage can also be seen overflowing onto the road.

D. Santosh Kumar, a differently abled person, who runs a bakery in K.K. Nagar, complained that the roads are unmotorable. He said that he cannot use the road connecting K.K. Nagar with Thangaraj Salai via Karumbalai in order to reach his residence as the road which was dug up for laying underground drainage pipeline has not been restored. Due to the rain, the dug-up soil has made the road slushy, he said.

Not just for two-wheelers, but even for four-wheelers it was not easy to move along the stretch. Even cars were stuck in the muddy road, Mr. Kumar said and added that to avoid the mess, the best option for him was to use the pothole-ridden 80-Feet Road.

Advocate I. Robert Chandrakumar said he found it hard to use the stretch along the Reserve Line and Valar Nagar road. The repeated digging of roads for various purposes by various departments has turned even good and decent roads bad. The departments should work in tandem and restore the roads to their original state immediately. “Even arterial roads in the city are in a bad state”, he complained.

Residents say waterlogging leads to mosquito breeding. Many times the authorities had assured the residents that waterlogging problem would be sorted out on a war footing. However, little was done to solve the problem. They hoped that this time around the authorities would address the issue at the earliest.