Nand Kishore Yadav took a tough stance on potholed roads on Monday, instructing department contractors to repair those ahead of the festive season or face action.

Forty contractors maintain 9,064km of Bihar's 15,150km state highways and district roads - owned by the road construction department - under the output and performance based road assets maintenance contract. Road construction minister Nand Kishore issued strict instructions to these contractors to repair any potholes on the 9,000km-and-odd stretch before Dussehra and Muharram under this contract.

Dussehra is on Septem-ber 30 and Muharram on October 1.

Failure of any contractor to repair the potholed roads before then will invite strict action, said Nand Kishore.

The contract assigns the contractors responsibility of maintaining roads to the defined service level for five years. Monday's directions came at a workshop on the three-and-a-half-years of the road maintenance contract and changes required for the next phase to start in 2019.

'Repair of potholes is must before Dussehra and Muharram at any cost,' Nand Kishore said at the meeting, sitting with principal secretary Amrit Lal Meena and engineer-in-chief Laxmi Narayan Das at Adhiveshan Bhavan. 'Even if a single pothole is found, strict action will be taken against the engineers and the contractors responsible for monitoring and maintaining the road respectively,'

The Telegraph asked the minister about his stress on the upcoming occasions. He said: 'People come on to the roads in large numbers during Dussehra to seek Goddess Durga's blessings. During Muharram too, people are out in the processions. We do not want the people to face any problem at this time so we have taken the decision to repair the potholes.'

Patna's Bailey Road has potholes on a stretch of about 50 meters because of work on the Lohia Path Chakra as do the area in front of the senior superintendent of police's office near Gandhi Maidan, a stretch near the Station Road and a 200m stretch in Mithapur.

Road construction officials said there are 568 potholes across different stretches in Bihar, while in Patna district alone, 300km of roads come under the road maintenance contract.

The contract's policy received cabinet approval on February 12, 2013, at a time Nand Kishore was in the Nitish Kumar cabinet. The total amount approved for the policy was Rs 2579.17 crore for five years.

In the coming days, the road construction department is firm on expanding kilometres maintained under the contract.

Road ambulance

The minister expressed his displeasure at the poor use of road ambulances in the state.

The department has 67 GPS-fitted road ambulances that work on road repair, clearing of obstacles on road and deal with hit-and-run cases, and mass injuries.

Nand Kishore said at one time Bihar's image was tarnished because of bad roads and how it took more than a decade to make the roads motorable and smooth.

'Bihar's image is connected with roads and I cannot compromise on this. When I was out of the road ministry, very rarely would I see a road ambulance in Bihar,' said the BJP minister.

'Road ambulances can be seen near the chief minister's house and ministers' houses. But I want to say this very clearly, these should be used all the time, to repair damaged roads across the state. Be ready to face strict action otherwise.'