Maintenance guarantee scheme for roads soon

In an effort to ensure maintenance and repair of roads, the state government is going for Performance Maintenance Guarantee of Roads. Presiding over the ‘Infrastructure Conference 2012’, Public Works Minister V K Ebrahim Kunju said that the Cabinet has given administrative sanction of Rs 4,692 crore for upgradation of 1204 kms of selected roads in the state. The State Road Development Corporation has been formed for the purpose.

Once the roads are included in the Performance Maintenance Guarantee scheme, contractors will be bound to guarantee the maintenance of roads for five years. In the first phase, the 75-km road to Sabarimala has been included in the heavy maintenance category and the work will be done soon. A total of 195-km road, including 12 roads under KSTP are being implemented in the scheme.

 He pointed out that e-tendering and e-payment have been successfully implemented in the state. The Kerala Highway Research Institute will be upgraded to a centre of excellence and the technical support for the same has been extended by Spanish Company Elsamer. The MoU for the project was handed over to Aurelio Ruiz Rubio, director of Elsamer at the function.

 Water Resource Minister P J Joseph, MLAs Hibi Eden, Dominic Presentation, K N A Khader and PWD Secretary T O Sooraj spoke on the occasion.

Chief Minister Oommen Chnady presented the best engineer awards to John K Sam (best executive engineer), S Sathish Kumar (best assistant executive engineer), Lajeesh Kumar (best assistant engineer) and A Sini (best woman engineer).