Will take action if roads laid sans milling: Stalin

Chief Minister MK Stalin on Saturday cautioned that officials failing to do milling work while relaying roads would face stringent action.

Stalin’s warning to officials came a day after he undertook a midnight tour of the city in the company of State Chief Secretary V Iraianbu to inspect road laying works in the city. Taking to Twitter to caution officials, Stalin said, “I ask all officials engaged in road building works to compulsorily mill the roads before relaying roads. Keep in mind that stringent action would be initiated against those failing (to mill the roads).”

Chief Secretary Iraianbu had also instructed officials to strictly comply with the milling instructions. The government’s offensive on the issue comes after the Madras High Court repeatedly pulled up the state machinery during the last few years for relaying roads without milling them, which leads to road heights going up and causing inundation during the rainy season.

Jayaram Venkatesan, an anti-corruption crusader who has been raising the road milling issue for a while now, welcomed the CM’s tweet and said, “It is welcome that the CM has raised the milling issue. Government must create a mechanism for the people to report and take remedial action whenever road height increases or roads are re-laid without milling them.” Posing a couple of messages in this regard on Twitter, Jayaram described the scrapping of a newly re-laid road as “first victory” and said, “This is proof of the fact that we can find a solution if we jointly oppose whenever road height is increased. Complete victory will be achieved only if the new roads are scraped off and roads re-laid to the height of the old road.” It is not very uncommon to find rainwater entering households owing to the increase in the height of the roads there.

Meanwhile, Chief Secretary V Iraianbu paid a surprise visit to Tambaram and inspected the road repair works on Saturday.

Iraianbu visited Shanthi Nagar in Chromepet and IAF Road in East Tambaram where road repair works are underway. His mission was to inspect whether roads are being laid after milling and whether the height level is being maintained. He also said that contractors must ensure a smooth flow of water to the stormwater drainage.