Call officials to get pot holes filled in Kerala

13,Jan,2009(IANS):Thiruvananthapuram: Residents of Kerala can now call any of 250 officials of the state Public Works Department (PWD) on their mobile phones to inform them of the new pot holes on the roads.

The pot holes will be filled in less than two days, state PWD minister P.J. Joseph promised on Wednesday.

Joseph distributed new mobile phones to PWD engineers and said this new facility is in addition to the recently-functioning toll free number that became operational November-end last year.

"From Nov 23 to Jan 8, we received 1,170 calls on the toll free number of our department. Most of those complaints that could be rectified in less than two days have been done," he said.

Of these, the complaints pertaining to pot holes numbered 311, followed by 275 complaints of damaged roads and 114 of bad drainage.

"These efforts are aimed at improving our services. We have decided to give 250 mobile connections to our engineers."

"As soon as a complaint is received it gets registered and in less than two days it would be attended and completed. And once the job is done, the complainant gets a call from our official saying that the job has been done," Joseph said.

Of the 173,592 km of roads in the state, the PWD has under its jurisdiction 29,727 km. The giant share of 122,232 km is under local village councils.