Panaji: Aam Aadmi Party cited corruption as the main cause for the poor road engineering on the Atal Setu Bridge, which has become an accident magnet in recent days. Minister for Public Works Nilesh Cabral said the government has asked IIT-Madras to find out the reasons for recurrence of potholes on the Atal Setu Bridge recently. He also said that his department will try to introduce a new machine which can fill up potholes even during the monsoon Reacting to this AAP Vice President Valmiki Naik remarked that the road on the Atal Setu has been damaged due to the usage of substandard adhesive. According to Naik, the L&T Company was aware that the inferior adhesive would cause damage to the road. Despite this, they were obliged to utilise inferior adhesive. Naik wondered if the suppliers’ proximity to the central government influenced their decision to purchase this adhesive. “The government has been fooling the Goans for the last two-three years by repeatedly fixing potholes,” Naik remarked. “The guarantee term will expire in the coming years, and the government will once again employ public funds to construct the road. As a result, the only solution to this problem is to remove the existing asphalt and replace it with adequate adhesive”, he added. AAP leader Sunil Signapurkar said that contractors have to bribe officials of the Public Works Department from issuance of work orders to hot mixing. Officials of the Public Works Department are not concerned about the lives of the people, but rather are more interested in estimations. We are therefore seeing substandard work. AAP leader Cecile Rodrigues said, “There are a lot of issues pending which need attention from the PWD officials, however, the government has set aside 22 crores for a new building at St. Inez. PWD stands for Public Work Department. Their primary duty is to serve the public”.
