Yesterday (24- September-2014) i had to go to world trade center near yeshwanthpur for an important meeting. The meeting was scheduled at 2:00 PM and i had to leave the house by 12:30 PM. My wife had prepared early lunch so that i do not have anything outside.
There was no milk at home and the local milk booth was closed. Since the car was outside, i took a drive to another milk booth about a kilometer away. It was 11:30 AM and i had ample time. As i was about to park the car on the milk booth road (10th cross, 12th Main, 2 phase J.P.Nagar), my car seat sank down a foot and a half . The road below the car had caved in and the tyres went into the slush. The road below had to take an additional 100 Kg :) rather 95...
A reputed contractor L&T is executing some Underground pipe line works in the area. They had finished laying pipes a few days back and had left the road in a very condition. They had not compacted the soil properly . Heavy rains the previous day had worsened the road. I was the unlucky fellow to fall prey to their shoddy work.
I had no clue on what to do. I asked a construction engineer at a close by construction to help me with a few labourers. He blatantly refused. The house owner in front of my stuck up car was furious not on me but on the contractors. Apparently this had happened earlier once and the contractor took no cognisance of it. She made some frantic calls to the L&T engineers.
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| Stuck!! |
Meantime, i called the Ford helpline. They were taking ages to respond. The local garage guy said he will arrange for a crane. It would cost me a bomb of 3500 bucks. I was not in a mood to spend that kind of money for no fault of mine. Few people passing by were giving some unsolicited advice but no help.
Finally an Auto driver showed up and offered to help. I was not in a condition to lift the car or put the jack since i am recovering from a small surgery.
Meantime, i called the local corporator Mr Chandrashekar Raju and explained to him the bad condition of the road. In a few minutes i got a call from the Jayanagar MLA's office for something else. I explained to the personal assistant of the MLA on what had happened and that the road needs urgent attention.
Thanks to the house owner who was blasting the contractors and may be a call from the corporator or the MLA's office, in a few minutes about 8 gangmen arrived in a jeep. Meantime, i had asked for a crane service. I was feeling bad to shell down a few thousand bucks. However, the contractor's engineer said that it was his responsibility and that i cancel the crane service. I obliged.
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| Contractor's men on the job post episode. |
So the eight men got into position. One person excavated some soil below the car. He put a plank there (may be they are so used to doing this job). I started the car and put it in reverse gear. Few men lifted the car and a few more pushed it as i increased the throttle on the accelerator. The car came out ,tyres full of slush and the air filled with the smell of rubber.
It is so disappointing that these incidents happen time and again. If only the contractor had filled up the soil properly and compacted it before putting concrete, so much discomfort and trouble could have been avoided. It required some firing from responsible citizens and a push from the political representative to do such a small 10 minute job.
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| The roller arrived after some "Jack Up" |
Nevertheless, since the episode, the contractor's men pressed into action. They excavated the soil, put the aggregates , compacted the soil with a roller and put concrete and barricaded the wet portion. All it took was 15 minutes.
We are such a paradoxical country. We can put the mars orbiter on track in the first attempt with least cost but in almost 70 years of independence , we cannot make a neat stretch of road or a neat stretch of repair. It is not the lack of skill but only lack of accountability that is responsible for many of our shoddy public works.
Nonetheless, the silver lining is that the contractor responded to calls from the responsible homeowner and from the political bosses. I saved 3000 ruppes.
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| Road Patched Up. |
