Refinery demands road repair

Guwahati June 23: Guwahati Refinery today accused the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) of failing to keep its commitment to repair the refinery?s NB Road, which the corporation had dug up to construct a tunnel.

The 100-metre-long tunnel, which is under construction, stretches from near the Indian Oil Corporation-owned Guwahati Refinery to Soonsali Ghat at Noonmati to channelise rainwater into the Brahmaputra.

Senior manager (corporate communication) of the refinery, Anjana B. Sarmah, said in a statement that the NBCC had promised to repair the road and clear it of the dug-up earth after the digging was over.

?But the NBCC has not done its job, as a result of which the road is in a deplorable condition. The road has become non-motorable and is causing much hardship to the general public residing across the road, including employees of the refinery. This was pointed out many times to the NBCC and the government officials,? she said.

The accusation comes after the NBCC charged the Guwahati Refinery with not relocating the quarters of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), resulting in inordinate delay in the completion of the tunnel.

Sarmah, however, said the realignment of the tunnel, for which a part of the CISF quarters built by the refinery must be demolished, was not in the original plan. The question of demolition had arisen with the diversion of a drain around a temple on the roadside at Gopalnagar, Sarmah said. ?It is true that the NBCC has failed to keep its commitment,? an official said. He said the road would be repaired once construction of the tunnel was complete.

The tunnel is aimed at flushing out rainwater from the Noonmati, New Guwahati, Bonda and Guwahati Refinery areas to the Brahmaputra, through Soonsali Ghat.

Rainwater from these areas now flows into the Bharalu river, creating artificial floods in the Zoo Road area, Nabin Nagar, Lachit Nagar and other parts of East Guwahati.