Cadres of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), armed with shovels and sacks of gravel, converged at Swarna Bharathi Indoor Stadium on Thursday morning and filled up cavernous potholes that sprang up on the roads in the wake of heavy rains caused by Cyclone Gulab.
The cadres raised slogans against the State government, protesting its ‘negligence’ in repairing the damaged roads. The protesters further alleged that several accidents are occurring in the city due to the dangerous condition of the roads, and demanded that the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) take up repairs of the roads on a war footing.
Addressing a meeting after the protest, CPI(M) leader and Ward 78 corporator B. Ganga Rao said that not even a single road under GVMC limits was in a good condition.
Since the last two years, the corporation has failed to lay new roads despite seeing first-hand the problems being faced by citizens, Mr. Ganga Rao said, finding fault with the GVMC Council’s decisions to allot funds for theme parks worth ₹12 crore on a priority basis instead of repairing local roads. Though many corporators have raised the issue of bad roads in their wards during the council meet, the council has not released any funds for road repairs, he alleged.
The CPI(M) leader also claimed that the GVMC has not paid arrears to contractors which is why the contractors were unwilling to lay roads as of now. He added that recent rains under the influence of Cyclone Gulab further damaged the roads, but the GVMC is not focusing on the issue.
“When we raise questions about roads, GVMC officials claim that they would start repairs towards the end of October and say that the repairs would be completed by February. We do not believe them as the corporation has made similar promises in the past which it has failed to keep,” he said.
