The construction work on Ring Road, conceived to ease pressure on the city roads, has turned out to be a never ending project. The road which is frequently used these days is lying in half built condition for more than one and half year.
“I don’t think that the we will see a complete ring road even in a decade or so,” said Kanke MlA, Ramchandra Baitha adding “I have made repeated requests to the authorities but to no avail.”
The 23-km stretch of the ring road connecting Ranchi-lohardaga NH-75 to Ranchi-Hazaribagh NH-33 is incomplete at several places. The road sans any bridges and culverts is also engulfed in land acquisition controversy.
As many as 38 culverts as against 75 proposed & nine bridges have been constructed on the 10 km of road constructed so far.
Notably, the Road Construction department has not progressed even an inch in the direction of appointing a competent agency for the construction of the remaining work. “We have not appointed any contractor since blacklisting the last one,” said Chief Engineer, Road Construction Department, Ram Naresh Raman adding “the DPR for the phase is being prepared.”
The phase VII of the ring road project is in limbo following blacklisting of the contractor after they failed to honour the deadline. According to sources, STUP Consultant has been appointed as the consultant to prepare DPR for the remaining work.
To the chagrin of the department of Road Construction, entire stretch under Phase VII has fallen victim to pilferage and theft of construction materials. “People have stolen steel used in concrete pillars and stored at the sight,” said a resident of Manatu.