RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA (rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt)

Frus­trat­ed with gap­ing pot­holes dam­ag­ing their ve­hi­cles, res­i­dents of Dig­i­ty Vil­lage in Bar­rack­pore yes­ter­day came to­geth­er and start­ed fix­ing the road them­selves.

Us­ing sal­vaged ma­te­r­i­al from old projects, a back­hoe and shov­els, the res­i­dents—led by Jadoolal Ram­cha­ran—be­gan the patch­work around 7 am. He scraped off ex­cess ma­te­r­i­al from the road­sides, left there by the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and placed them in­side the pot­holes. His rel­a­tives Al­lana Ram­cha­ran and Alexan­der Ram­dass used shov­els to flat­ten the ma­te­r­i­al.

Ram­cha­ran said he de­cid­ed to use his back­hoe and truck to fix the road be­cause he was fed up of the con­stant dam­ages they faced to their ve­hi­cles.

"I live right here in the vil­lage and I see one of my friends buss a crankcase here in that big hole," Ram­cha­ran re­vealed.

He added: "When I saw that I de­cid­ed that maybe I should just fix the hole. If I had the ma­te­r­i­al, I would have done the whole road. I'm try­ing to source a lit­tle ma­te­r­i­al here and there. I don't know where to get the rest of the ma­te­r­i­al but if I had it, I would do the whole road," Ram­cha­ran added.

Alana said they usu­al­ly plant crops on the sides of the Bar­rack­pore Con­nec­tor Road and since the road got dam­aged, few peo­ple were pass­ing through the area to buy.

"Since the roads get bad, no­body pass­ing to buy veg­eta­bles and the goods stay­ing home and spoil­ing," Al­lana added.

An­oth­er res­i­dent Alexan­der Ram­dass said be­cause of the de­plorable road con­di­tions, they had to spend mon­ey to change the sus­pen­sion on his car.

"It is dif­fi­cult for us to have to change me­chan­i­cal parts all the timer. This is why we take it up­on our con­sid­er­a­tion to fix the road our­selves."

He said the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion dropped ma­te­r­i­al in the area but nev­er used oil­sand or coal mix to keep the grav­el sta­ble.

"When the rain came, every­thing washed away," Ram­dass said.

Chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dr Allen Sam­my could not be reached for com­ment and did not re­spond to mes­sages.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein said he could un­der­stand the plight of the res­i­dents.

"This is cit­i­zens help­ing them­selves and I agree with them, but these kinds of works must be done in con­sul­ta­tion with the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion," Ho­sein said.

He ex­plained that road­works were the job of the Cor­po­ra­tion.

Ho­sein said he in­tend­ed to in­ves­ti­gate why the Cor­po­ra­tion dropped grav­el to fix the road but did not use any coal mix or as­phalt.