Monsoons are here and so are the bad roads

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The monsoon's are finally active fortunately in and around Hyderabad. The late start of rainy season had become a cause of deep concern to the farming community. Also, it has a deep impact on the electricity generation in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Already the state of Andhra Pradesh is reeling under intense power cuts and I have been reading news paper reports about the Central Government turning down state's request for additional power for the fifth time.

The state of Andhra Pradesh (AP) has an huge shortfall of energy required. It is surprising that, AP used to sell additional electricity to neighboring states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, not too long ago. Today the demand for energy has over shot AP's capacity to generate it.

Most of the rivers in India are rain dependent and hence the electricity generation at the Hydal Power Plants are at the mercy of Rain Gods.

Despite the late monsoons bringing to cheers to the people, it also brings misery too. The roads are one particular aspect which suffer every rainy season in AP. If the road network in the capital city of AP, Hyderabad are any indication of the capabilities of Road Construction Department of the State, (called PWD, Public Works Department), I am can confident that the roads in the rest of the state are going to be in deplorable state.

One of the worst road laying techniques can be found in the city of Hyderabad. If you want to learn how not to make bad roads, please come to Hyderabad.

• No gutters to regulate the rain waters which can be really destructive to the health of the roads
• The surface of the roads are so rough and un even even when they are new, mere use of them is going to wear them in matter of no time
• Absolutely no coordination between different civic services departments like water board, road works, electricity, telephone departments which results in laying and digging of roads throughout the year, never providing proper relief to the users.
• Unabated use of heavy construction and construction equipment (mainly super heavy pre-mixed cement/concrete trucks), which rapidly destroy the feeble road network. The roads have certain capacity to carry certain kinds of vehicles. I am not an expert on this, but common sense tells me that you can not use all kinds of vehicles on any type of roads. I think state of AP can earn huge amounts of tax if it levies special road taxes just on these building construction vehicle. Not only the state gets additional revenue, it will make people use the resources more judiciously.
• The roads are further damaged by people, who construct private and un-authorized speed breakers (humps), laying private water pipes across the streets. These are deadly, they are neither placed judiciously nor constructed with any kind of science in mind. They not only ruin the vehicles, also harm the travelers.

Please protest in any way you can and make an impact. Please save energy and help the environment.