The Madhya Pradesh High Court has recently disposed of a PIL seeking direction to the respondent authority to construct the road from Tentra to Vijaypur to Dhobani District Sheopur.
The PIL filed by Lalit Mohan Sharma further sought direction to take the action immediately for patch-work of the above road. The Gwalior Bench comprising Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Deepak Kumar Agrawal noted that in the last about 2 and 1/2 years of the pendency of the PIL, responses and compliance reports have been filed by the State and as well as M.P. Road Development Corporation revealed the efforts taken by them and also the reasons for their failure to complete the repairing and rebuilding of the road in question which is from Tentra to Vijaypur to Dhobani, District Sheopur.
The last compliance report filed by the Chief Engineer, Gwalior reveals that Public Works Department (PWD) North Zone has a policy of repairing all kinds of roads, even those which have been entrusted to MPRDC, where the Corporation fails to repair/build the road within the prescribed period of time.
The Chief Engineer submitted that though limited man power and machinery are available with the PWD, it is enough to fill the gaps created by the inaction or failure of the Corporation to perform its duties for reasons which may or may not be attributed to the Corporation.
After going through the affidavit specially the averments that the road in question has already been taken over by PWD and the maintenance work has started, the Court for the time being disposes of the petition with a direction to the Chief Engineer to file a compliance report within a period of 30 days i.e. latest by November 8, 2021.