Chennai: After protests and petitions to the govt, anti-corruption NGO Arappor Iyakkam has decided to take its campaign against raising road levels directly to the engineers and officials who execute road projects.Arappor Iyakkam convener Jayaram Venkatesan said the campaign was meant for the people who actually decide how a road should be laid. The NGO said public was already aware of the issue, but not officials.The NGO has released pamphlets listing six demands, including recording and publishing measurements, withholding contractor payments if road levels are raised, and compensating affected homeowners up to ₹40 lakh. Residents can collect the pamphlets, fill them and give them directly to the engineers.Jayaraman said several people from the city, as well as other corporations such as Coimbatore, asked for pamphlets, which were then sent to them digitally. “Residents must go to govt offices, meet their assistant engineers and executive engineers, and hand over the pamphlet in person,” he said. “Once they start laying roads, people will have already met the officials, so they will know whom to raise a complaint with,” he said. He added that the campaign will run through Dec as new roads will be laid in Jan.Anna Nagar resident and civic activist Sandhya V said awareness among residents alone would not change much. “Residents are aware, but is it helpful? It is not enough unless people start questioning,” she said.She said that even after Greater Chennai Corporation issued a circular on Oct 6 stating that road height must not be raised, the patchwork done on Second Main Road in Anna Nagar was laid without milling, or scraping off, the old surface. She said residents must get into the exercise of understanding civic issues and questioning the authorities. “There is no supervision done by GCC officials when the contractors carry out the work. In the end, when the quality is bad, it is residents who suffer. Officials must be blamed for it,” she said.
