Bridging the gaps

Times News Service

MUSCAT –

A local construction company was instrumental in restoring the vital road links after Cyclone Gonu damaged many roads.

Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC), which is building the dual carriageway between Quriyat and Al Amerat since the past seven months had its camps in Al Amerat.

The day after the cyclone, the company, knowing the importance of a road link immediately began the onerous task of building the road between Wadi Adei and Al Amerat without waiting for instructions from the authorities.

By the time the defence team had arrived, NCC had made the temporary road from the Al Amerat side leading to Wadi Adei.

According to officials of the Hyderabad-based NCC, this quick action by the company, which helped to restore the lifeline between Muscat and the two affected areas of Quriyat and Al Amerat, has been commended by the municipality authorities as well by the various agencies of the government which coordinated the road restoration work.

“After realising the magnitude of the situation, our company employees knew they had to react immediately and they plunged into action by mobilising the 2000-strong workforce and the fleet of heavy machinery and started work on building a new road besides the breached portions of the highway,” Narayana Raju Alluri, director of NCC told the Times of Oman.

Soon defence personnel arrived and together with the workers of NCC completed the road link within 24 hours for traffic between Al Amerat and Wadi Adei.

This helped the relief materials to reach the affected people in Quriyat in quick time.

NCC also bridged the gap in the highway just at the entrance to Quriyat below the mountain, making a road from the wadi-bed stones and granules.

“We deployed all our heavy machinery which includes trucks, dozers, loaders water tankers worth around INR120 crore to repair the breached roads step by step in Al Amerat, Quriyat, Seah, Serin and Wadi Adei in coordination with the municipality authorities,” Alluri said.

“The municipality authorities were pleased with our initial action. Now we are taking their instructions to repair the rest of the roads,” Alluri added.

“Our heavy machinery is at the disposal of the government for the reconstruction works and we will start our normal work later on,” Alluri said.

Alluri said the entire team of NCC employees including Omanis worked day and night to support the government in the rebuilding and restoration works.

He said that the NCC has much experience working in cyclone areas like Andhra Pradesh, Orissa in India and they are ready to mobilise 2000 extra workers in case the government wants more resources for the reconstruction works.

Besides the construction of the roads, NCC also did a ‘good samaritan’ job by reaching out to the affected people and providing relief material, power generator etc to the residents of Yitti, where the company is working on a project for Sama Dubai.

They also provided petrol to the fishermen.

Nearly 35 kms of road connecting Yitti and Hajjr was destroyed but NCC got into the act here too and rebuilt the road. Further, the company also installed a 500 kv power generator to help the villagers in Yitti.

“We provided generators even in Al Amerat petrol station to supply fuel to the motorists,” Alluri informed.