Moolchand gets new caution signboards

You will soon find warning boards and caution signs on roads where carpeting or widening work is going on.

After five people lost their lives and two their limbs, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit said she was going to ensure that there caution boards and warning signages were put up prominently at all construction sites across the Capital.

"The motorists may not know there is some work going on. It may get difficult for them during the night. Even during the day if they suddenly see some construction happening," Dikshit said.

Five persons died and four suffered serious injuries in separate accidents at Moolchand underpass along the Ring Road in south Delhi as a result of the faulty re-carpeting work done on the roads..

The re-carpeting was being done in a manner that it created islands of fresh layer of road and left a difference of 2-2.5 inches between the old and new surface of the road.

The victims, driving or riding pillion on two-wheelers, lost control after hitting the uneven patch on the road and were run over by vehicles coming from behind.

Finally woken up from their slumber, the public works department (PWD) has put up several warning boards, in Hindi as well as in English, asking motorists to drive slow and carefully, on both the carriageways of Moolchand underpass. Dikshit said, "Such warning boards will soon come up all over the Capital."

Hauled up by the department, the contractor also sped up the re-carpeting work and has almost completed the relaying work along one carriageway of the underpass.

Hindustan Times has been reporting how the public works department, Delhi's prominent road building agency, was indifferent to the frequent accidents at the underpass.

Hindustan Times also highlighted the fact that the contractor and the road building agency ignored the basics fundamentals of construction and failed to put up necessary warning boards to caution motorists.

"We have asked the contractor to complete the work as soon as possible. He has assured that he will put more men on the job and will complete the work at the earliest," a senior PWD engineer said.