RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Aug.24: One travelling on Ranchi-Patratu Road needs to be careful while crossing Cambrian School as there is a black spot close to Blessington Heights where an accident takes place every day.
A few days ago, former Rajya Sabha member and industrialist Mahesh Poddar had brought this black spot into public domain through a tweet on August 21 but before anyone could take care of the spot another accident took place last night. In the last night accident, a car ran on a divider and got trapped.
Though there is no report of any casualty in the incident, locality residents say if proper action is not taken a major accident-causing heavy loss of life and property may take place any day.
If information given by former Rajya Sabha MP Poddar is anything to go by, over 1000 vehicles would have been involved in the accident since the road came into existence but so far, no remedial action was taken.
On November 21, 2012 the then chief minister Arjun Munda had inaugurated the road which connects Ranchi with a tourist destination Patratu Dam. The road project was implemented by Jharkhand Road Project Implementation Company, subsidiary of IL&FS Transportation Networks.
Ranchi deputy commissioner Rahul Kumar Sinha could not be contacted for his comment on the issue. Road construction department officials expressed their inability to give any information regarding the agency expected to take care of the road at present when contacted over phone this afternoon.
Another road construction department official said: “The Ranchi-Patratu Dam Road was a part of the Jharkhand Accelerated Road Development Programme of the Government of Jharkhand. The length of the road is 35.27 km consisting of 16.60 km of four lanes and 18.27 km of two lanes with paved shoulders. Jharkhand government was expected to pay a semi-annual annuity of Rs 25.06 crore for the O&M period of 15 years but only god knows why this black spot is unattended so far. ILFS was taking care of the maintenance. I think after the company became bankrupt, maintenance work has been affected.”
https://twitter.com/maheshpoddarjhr/status/1693567253005185467?t=wLWA7IY9HpBO0vYKc-zUzA&s=19
