Poor maintenance of NH4 from Belgaum to Dharwad

Letter from R K Patil, Belgaum.

Any traveler taking NH4 from Kolhapur to Hubli can notice the difference between a quality of execution and maintenance of NH4 highway by two different establishments.

The project executed by Punj Lloyd bears the testimony to world class infrastructure while the part implemented by RN Shetty & Co. shows the sorry state of petty time contractor trying to get into big league.

The part of NH4 operated by Shetty's (Belgaum to Dharwad) has already developed serious problems (pot holes, water clogging, poor maintenance). I am attaching two pictures of the road taken at Mahantesh Nagar & Ashok Nagar junction where the road barricades have been uprooted by the lorry owner shops lying just next to service road. This is done so that the shop owner’s trucks do not end up in taking a long route to reach the shops. This has resulted in land slide at road side, water logging. In few days from now I am sure the roads will also starts giving away. Besides this it poses a great danger to speeding vehicles on NH4 who never expect vehicles to join or exit at this place!

I have brought this to the notice of the NH4 patrol and maintenance engineers stationed in Hubli (Mr. Ramanujam) and Belgaum (Mr. Jai Prakash). Looks even the NH4 authorities are least bothered about this.

Travelers on Belgaum stretch can see a lot of pot holes and trenches on NH4 stretch that runs between Belgaum and Halga, once again it looks the maintenance authorities are turning blind eye. Only when we start paying lower tolls for this stretch then the authorities might wake up.

rkpatil [at] vayavyalabs.com