A petition has been filed in the Chhattisgarh High Court on the issue of increasing the height of the road by the Public Works Department (PWD).
The petition was filed by Nitin Singhvi, a resident of Raipur, alleging that PWD is increasing the height of the roads by several feet by topping the road with a fresh layer of bitumen.
According to the petition, doing this every three-four years by the Municipal Corporation and Public Works Department in the name of renewal has increased the height of roads in urban areas by two to three feet over the last 25 years.
The petitioner stated that earlier the Division Bench of the MP High Court while hearing a public interest litigation in this case against K.K. Palia and others Vs State Of Chhattisgarh, the High Court had ordered in January 2018 that the petitioners should present their problems to the competent authority of the PWD or the city administration.
Based on the decision of the High Court, Singhvi moved an application to the PWD Chief Engineer, Raipur, in March 2019 and in October 2020, alleging the height of the pavement was lower than the height of the road in front of his house and office. But no action was taken by the PWD, the petitioner alleged.
The petitioner informed the Court that B.S. Gupta, the then Consultant of PWD and retired Chief Engineer from Madhya Pradesh, had told in the letter that engineers of many concerned departments, without proper design, do arbitrary elevation of roads. The height of roads in Raipur city has been increased so much by the PWD and the Municipal Corporation that old dividers disappeared and new dividers had to be built over them. Residents of many colonies are troubled by waterlogging since the road in front of their houses is higher than the plinth of the houses.
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It was also claimed in the petition that after increasing the height of the road continuously, the road got higher and the pavement was down. One has to climb the steps like a ladder on the road. Due to this, the family is facing a lot of difficulty.
A single-judge bench of Justice Gautam Bhaduri considered the issue genuine and has asked the state government to reply in the matter.