: It has been 10 days or so since town buses passed through the Vellalore Muniappan Koil Street to Edayarpalayam and Kanjikonampalayam, both of which are south of Vellalore Bus Stop. The reason: damaged road that has disappeared beneath slush.
Bus service stoppedIn the absence of bus service, the residents there are forced to negotiate the slush to reach the Vellalore Bus Stop to board buses to the city, complains M. Vijayalakshmi, a resident of Kuppusamy Thevar Street.
Adding to the slush is the water leaking from the Pilloor main pipeline, which the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board placed there over two years ago as part of its Pilloor augmentation project.
Two-wheelers falling off vehicles, while negotiating the slush, has become a day-to-day activity, says R. Rani, who runs a savouries shop there.
The road has been in a bad shape for the past two years ever since the TWAD Board laid the pipeline. It used be potholes on an uneven surface that kicked up dust every time vehicles passed by.
To make the surface motorable, the residents dumped earth and also sprinkled water on the surface to prevent dust from billowing and settling in homes, Ms. Rani adds.
In the recent rains, things went from bad to worse after water began to stagnate and turn the stretch slushy, the residents say and add that their complaints to the Vellalore Panchayat has not evoked response.
Re-lay roadPanchayat president V.U. Marudachalam says that he has written to the Highways Department asking them to re-lay the road and things have reached a stage where the Department will begin work after monsoon.
TWAD Board engineers say that they will arrest the leak on the pipeline at the earliest.
