The Public Works Department (PWD) in Delhi will carry out complete overhaul of major city roads after the monsoon season gets over, officials said on Tuesday

According to PWD officials, the move is aimed at improving health of roads which gets deteriorated during rainy season due to extensive waterlogging and high-intensity rainfall. A major portion of the road beneath IIT flyover on Outer Ring Road had caved in on Saturday due to leakage of an underground Delhi Jal Board (DJB) pipeline. The department had worked overnight to repair the stretch and allow vehicular traffic on the road.

Major roads of the city will get a complete overhaul after end of the monsoon season. This will include major repairing and other maintenance works, PWD Engineer-in-Chief Shashi Kant said. He added that there are a number of roads and flyovers that need to be repaired but it can be carried out only after the monsoon season comes to an end.

According to a study conducted by the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) on request of the PWD in 2019, several flyovers in the city were in dire need of revamp. Some of those structures were repaired but work on a majority of the flyovers are yet to be done. The PWD manages more than 1,260 kilometres of arterial and other big roads in the city that are wider than 60 feet. Senior PWD officials said that the department keeps conducting repair works but those are either smaller ones or generally need based.

He said that the PWD had been getting complaints of rickety roads, potholes and also witnessed road cave-in incident so it was required to conduct thorough checks and repair works.

In the drive, we will check conditions of the road, potholes will be repaired, road re-carpeting will be done along with other patching work. We have already started checking the road strength and its load bearing capacity to minimise chances of road cave-ins, the official said. These efforts will ensure long life of the roads.

Officials said the exercise will cover all major roads where vehicular traffic volume is high. Some of the key stretches where revamp work will be carried out include Outer Ring Road, Ring Road, Aurobindo Marg, Rohtak Road, Mathura Road, Vikas Marg among others.

Delhi has been experiencing heavy waterlogging during rains. The city has also witnessed a few incidents of road cave-ins at different locations after heavy downpour. The PWD has also asked officials to avoid deep digging work and cover open trenches during monsoons. PWD officials said there are instances of dug-up stretches kept lying open or unattended, posing a threat to commuters, especially during the rains.

Instructions have been issued not to conduct deep digging work in the rainy season to avoid waterlogging and any untoward incident, the official said.