AHMEDABAD: “Each day it feels as though Bopal is constantly being rolled into an operation theatre, ripped open for a bypass surgery. We had much better roads under Bopal municipality. We see no advantages of being under Ahmedabad municipal corporation,” says Kartik Patel, 17, a resident of Meghna society.
Patel’s sentiment resonates across housing societies in Bopal, south Bopal and Ghuma, where residents have been grappling with dust and traffic jams for months now due to wrecked roads and incessant digging.
Nearly 71% of the 1.4km stretch between Chittvan in South Bopal to Aaryan Complex on Bopal Panchayat Road will make you feel as if you are riding a bullock cart. About 22% of this stretch is of average ride quality as per the roughness index measured through vibrations by the app, Road Bounce. A concrete road should have fewer than 2,200 vertical elevations on a 100m section to be classified as ‘excellent’ on the index. An asphalt road must fewer than 2,000 bumps. An asphalt road is classified ‘average’ if it has between 2,000 and 3,000 vertical rises over 100m. The road is ‘bad’ if the number crosses 3,000.
Another road stretch that has deteriorated beyond recognition is the one linking Ambli Junction in South Bopal to SG Highway towards Bodakdev. Nearly 52% of the road is of poor or average quality. A senior AMC official said that zonal budgets for road repairs and laying new civic lines in the area has been sanctioned and will be handled by the zonal office. “The issues will remain for another 1.5 years as many areas in Ghuma and Bopal are being dug to lay civic lines.”
(With inputs from Himanshu Kaushik)
