Chief Minister Atishi assured on Sunday that the roads in Delhi would be free from potholes before Diwali as all the damaged Public Works Department (PWD) roads would be repaired.
The chief minister’s assurance came after former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, in a letter, urged her to work on a war footing to ensure timely repair of the damaged roads.
An all-minister meeting was called at the Delhi Secretariat on Sunday in this regard.
In a press briefing, Atishi said all Delhi government ministers would start field inspection of roads across the city from Monday to assess the extent of damage and the repair needed. “With a mission to assess and overhaul 1,400 km of PWD roads before Diwali, repairs are set to begin at full speed next week,” she said.
“I have taken the responsibility of South and South-East Delhi while Saurabh Bharadwaj has taken responsibility for East Delhi, Gopal Rai has taken the responsibility of North-East Delhi, Kailash Gahlot has taken the responsibility of West and South-West Delhi, Imran Hussain has taken the responsibility of Central and New Delhi and Mukesh Ahlawat has taken the responsibility of North and North West Delhi,” she added.
The chief minister said all the ministers of the Delhi government would inspect the roads from 6 am on Monday in the presence of local MLAs, and engineers of the PWD, including the chief engineer and superintendent engineer.
“In the next one week, every meter of 1,400 km of PWD roads in Delhi will be inspected. As soon as this inspection is over, the work of repairing all the roads will start on a war footing from next week,” she added.
The chief minister further said that the PWD has been given the target of repairing roads by October. “We hope by the end of October, we will be able to give pothole-free roads to all the Delhiites. As Arvind Kejriwal has written in his letter, the people of Delhi are troubled by the broken roads, by repairing all these broken roads on a war footing, we will give pothole-free Delhi to the people of Delhi,” she said.