The deadline given by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to the state administration to make it pothole-free ended on November 30.
On October 6, Adityanath had directed the administration to repair all roads and fill all the potholes of the state by November 15. But the deadline was extended by another 15 days since the target could not be met.
The second deadline ended today and the state government claims that nearly 97 per cent of the roads have been fixed, and are also boasting of the pothole-free campaign.
The UP government data claims that the administration revamped roads across the entire state in just 26 days, between November 1 and 26. It also claims that 53 per cent of the roads were reconstructed and were revamped.
According to the Uttar Pradesh Public Works Department i.e. UP PWD, 60,497 kilometre of roads were to be repaired or renovated in the entire state under the Pothole-Free campaign, and the department, doing a marvellous job, improved about 58,423 kilometers of these roads.
How serious the Yogi government is about this campaign can be understood from the fact that PWD minister Jitin Prasada himself is monitoring the entire campaign.
He also sent senior officials to the ground to check the repair works. Instructions were given, warnings of salary deductions were issued. Not only this, to ensure that the campaign is completed on time, Diwali holidays of PWD officials and workers were cancelled.
According to state government data, 95 per cent potholes in Prayagraj, 97 per cent in Agra, 96 per cent in Gorakhpur, 95 per cent in Azamgarh, 98 per cent in Bareilly and 98 per cent in Ayodhya have been repaired.
However, our ground report to cross-check this claim was in contrast to the data. Be it Lucknow, Ghazipur or Kushinagar, the remaining 3 per cent potholes were too evident. In fact, most of the roads we checked remained unrepaired, which have not been recorded in the government’s claim.
