The Amdavad Municipal Corporation (AMC) boasts a total budget of ₹15,000 crore, of which allocation for road construction is a whopping ₹1,000 crore. But sadly, there is no lab to test the materials used to construct these roads.
AMC has now approved the establishment of a material testing lab at a cost of ₹2.74 crore.
The city is not new to the issues related to roads, especially during monsoon when potholes and cave-ins are frequent.
In 2017, a public litigation filed in the Gujarat High Court led to action against over 30 engineers, including the additional city engineer of the AMC, when roads built at a cost of ₹400 crore had washed away.
The then road committee chairman and current deputy mayor Jatin Patel had at that time drawn the municipal commissioner’s attention to IOC bogus billing scam, leading to the blacklisting of three contractors.
At the start of monsoon, Ahmedabad roads were riddled with 3,000 potholes in just 15 inches of rain. As many as 307 such potholes have been repaired at a cost of ₹5 lakh.
With the 2025 monsoon bringing its challenges, the authorities have finally decided to establish a material testing lab. However, no timeline has been set for the project as of now.