While the people of Korphu Gewog of Trongsa are finally seeing their 19.5-kilometre Gewog Centre (GC) road blacktopped, they are unhappy with the quality of the work. The contractor began the blacktopping works from the second week of this month and completed about 200-metre of the stretch as of last Friday.
The gewog said the road condition has improved but the quality of blacktopping and the work progress is poor at present.
“Since the blacktopping is carried out without a compressor machine, I don’t think the road will last for even a year. People who come here question us about the blacktopping. Many blame the gewog and the Department of Roads’ poor monitoring,” said Yeshey Nidup, the Korphu Mangmi.
“The laying of base course work itself was a problem. It would be better to first construct a strong base before blacktopping,” said Dorji Tshewang, from Korphu Gewog.
“If the blacktopping is not up to the mark, we will struggle like before. The place here receives heavy rainfall and the road becomes muddy. I think the poor quality blacktopping would be useless then,” added Thinley, also from the same gewog.
The contractor agreed that the compressor machine to clean the road before blacktopping is yet to reach the site. The site supervisor of Druk Samdrup Private Limited said the machine will arrive within this week. “Besides this, we have all the other equipment here,” he added.
The Department of Roads office said since the thickness of the blacktop is 25 millimetres and the base course is thinner compared to the base course constructed for the highways, it is challenging for them to maintain uniform thickness throughout the stretch.
Meanwhile, the blacktopping is scheduled to be fully complete in May this year.
The construction of the GC road began in 2016 and was supposed to be complete in 2018. However, even after extending the deadline, the previous contractor failed to complete the works following which in June 2019, the contractor was terminated.
The Korphu GC road is the last GC road to be blacktopped in Trongsa. Some people say, instead of awarding the construction works to a lone contractor, it would have been better if the works were divided among several other contractors so that the works would have been completed already and exactly on time with quality.
Passang, Trongsa
