SAPO holds road repairing drive on NH-2 Kohima-Mao stretch

October 27, 2022 28 Views No Comment

Morung Express News
Kohima | October 27

The Southern Angami Public Organisation (SAPO), on October 26, undertook a road repairing drive along the National Highway-2 Kohima-Mao stretch to address the deplorable road condition.

Movement of heavy vehicles (trucks and tankers), both local and non local, were restricted from 6AM to 4PM to allow smooth repairing of the road.

The repair work concentrated on filling up of potholes as it was endangering human lives and becoming very risky for all the commuters, SAPO President Kevipodi Sophie here informed The Morung Express.

The repairing work started from Phesama Check gate area till Khuzama Village, bordering Manipur state, covering a distance of around 26 kilometre.

The entire 5 villages in the NH-2 stretch including Phesama, Kigwema, Jakhama, Viswema and Khuzama participated in the repairing work mainly filling up of potholes in their jurisdiction.

According to Sophie, almost all the potholes were filled, except some few could not be done adding: “As an organisation and as villagers, we have resources crunch, but majority part has been covered.”

He further acknowledged and appreciated how the villagers responded very positively to the call for voluntary work.

‘The drive saw about 300-400 villagers participating throughout the stretch. They brought along resources that were contributed by the Southern Angami Public, including heavy machineries. All frontal bodies also participated today,’ he shared.

The repairing was conducted in the backdrop of the road lying neglected and the deplorable condition for a prolonged period despite a road construction project slated to have been executed and completed by April this year.

Accordingly, the Gauhati High Court, Kohima Bench has taken up a Public Interest Litigation (Suo Moto) in March 2022. As per Court’s document, the 26-kilometre stretch was originally slated to be executed and completed between October 20, 2020 to April 22, 2022, and the PIL was taken up due to the non-completion and deplorable condition of the road.

Meanwhile, SAPO President expressed shock at how the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) and the contractor (Fortune Group) were not complying with the Court’s orders.
Claiming not a single presence and movement of the NHIDCL and contractors on October 26, he questioned their negligence.

“Why it is taking so long to even fill up potholes which is endangering human lives and questioned what reason they have over not completing the work?” Sophie further posed.

He expressed dismay that the “contractors has placed all sorts of unreasonable objections and misleading the public” and the Southern Angami people were taking up the issue.

“The other day they claimed that hindrances from the landowners were obstructing the work. After the landowners, district administration, and SAPO and NHIDCL authority went for verification. The contractors could not identify who were obstructing the work,” he shared.

“Neither any of the landowners had raised objections. They apologised on the spot,” he added.

It must be noted here that the contractor on October 22 stated that “there is no local hindrance in the entire stretch of the ongoing road construction project, and acknowledged all the “cooperation and assistance for the completion of the project in time that has been extended by all the stakeholders and frontal organisations of the region.”

Meanwhile, during the last hearing on October 19, the contractor also assured that sufficient labourers and machineries would be deployed to meet the target of completion of 51% of the work by November 2022.

Source: https://morungexpress.com/sapo-holds-road-repairing-drive-on-nh-2-kohima-mao-stretch