Heavy rains, floods cause heavy losses in past 4 years

Aurangabad, Sept 15:

Heavy rains and floods situations caused heavy losses of roads and bridges in the district in the past four years. Zilla Parishad (ZP) had demanded funds from the state government for repairing on numerous occasions, but the alliance, as well as the Mahavikas Aaghadi government, have not provided a single rupee for the repairing of roads and bridges.

In September 2020, in all, 897.13 kilometers 354 roads and 355 small bridges in the nine tehsils in the district incurred huge losses. The ZP administration needed Rs 95.05 crores for repairing the roads and Rs 30.08 crores for the bridges. At the same time, Rs 2.95 crores were needed for constructing new bridges. Hence, the ZP president Meena Shelke had demanded funds of Rs 128,59,30,000 to accomplish 770 works. Similarly, 99 roads and bridges in Aurangabad, Phulambri, Kannad, Sillod, and Soyegaon needed repairing in September - October 2019, for which the administration had demanded Rs 27,76,10,000 to the rural development department. However, no funds have been received from the government so far.

This year, the ZP incurred losses to the tune of 211.47 crores as out of the total 6,655 kilometers of roads, 643 kms were damanged. Hence, the administration has demanded Rs 231 crores for the repairing as around 35 villages have been affected.

Executive engineer Ahmed Jafar Qazi said that last year, the government had directed to reserve five percent funds for the repairing. However, the planning and distribution were done until then. This year also heavy losses incurred and hence funds will be demanded to the government again, he said.

ZP president Meena Shelke said that in all, 213 irrigation projects incurred losses in 2020-21. A demand was made for the funds of Rs 35.89 crores from the chief minister Jalsamvardhan Scheme, of which only Rs 19.58 crores have been sanctioned so far. Similarly, the other funds are also pending with the government.