CPI (M) stages protest to highlight poor quality of highway in Seithur

Cadre of Communist Party of India (Marxist) staged a novel protest with the protesters sporting bandages to highlight the potholes-ridden Rajapalayam-Tenkasi Highway posing danger to the safety of road users in Seithur on Wednesday.

The protest was led by the party town secretary Gurunathan.

The protesters had “blood-soaked” bandages around their head, hands and legs to draw the attention of officials of National Highways Authority of India to the unmotorable condition of the road, especially for two km in Seithur.

“Not a day passes without someone getting injured after falling down from the motorbike failing negotiate the craters and deep pot holes on the road,” said party functionary B. Mariappan.

He said that NHAI had taken up widening of the highway between Tirumangalam and Kollam into four-laned road. Even as the work was under way, the quality of road between Road Transport Office at Rajapalayam and Chokkanathan Pudur was in a very bad condition as the officials neglected maintenance of the road for last year.

Worst is the two-km stretch in Seithur after the recent monsoon rain.

“Only the local people who are familiar with the poor condition of the road can manage to ride bikes in this stretch. Outsiders are facing lot of hardships, more so at night as the potholes are not visible,” he added.

Some stretch of the road is so worst that vehicles have to abruptly stop whenever they find some other vehicle coming from the opposite direction due to deeper and wider craters, he alleged.