Sascha Wilson
Fed up with bad roads destroying their vehicles, Barrackpore businessmen pooled their resources to conduct rehabilitation works along a two-mile stretch yesterday.
Blaming the deplorable road conditions on the neglect by the Government, resident and spokesman Shaheed Allaham said 16 businessmen provided labour, equipment, and material including boulders and oil sand to repair the pothole-ladened Digity Link Road.
That road runs between Lal Beharry Trace and New Colonial Road.
"This road is used regularly by traffic and the business sector and even heavy equipment to traverse from Lalbehary into the Barrackpore area," he said.
Despite the deplorable condition, he said the road is also used as an alternative route by commuters because there were nearby roads in a worsened condition.
"The road is in a very deplorable condition and because of lack of maintenance by the government and the state agency responsible for this road the business sector has come together and decided to donate materials towards the road improvement," he noted
In times gone by, he said business people would patch the road with boulders because it has not been repaired by the government in a decade.
"I would say 10 years this road hasn’t gotten any facelift hence the reason it has reached to this stage. If the Government or the state agency responsible would have done regular maintenance it would not have reached this condition because there are a lot of heavy equipment traversing from the Barrackpore area into San Fernando and into the capital city also."
He said the relevant authorities were aware of the condition because political representatives for the area as well as other officials regularly traverse the road.
He said the businessmen decided to fix the road themselves because it was costing them a lot of money to repair their vehicles and equipment.
"If you check the maintenance of these heavy equipment it is very costly on the contractors, on the owners and they have decided is better we repair this road rather than spend this money to repair our vehicles.|" However, he added, "That is to fair, everybody pay taxes and to be neglected like this is is really a slap in the face for the taxpayers of the Barrackpore area."
Just Saturday, residents of Sahadath Road, Princes Town protested over the deplorable conditions of the road. They said about ten houses have been destroyed by landslides and others were in jeopardy of collapsing, including a temple