FCI Road that connects Sathyamangalam Road with Gandhima Nagar, Peelamedu and other areas is perhaps the place to test one’s driving skills. For, the road user is forced to negotiate patches of the road that remains among potholes and speed breakers.
This holds good for the entire 1.8 km or so of the road. Road users say that they are forced to hone their skills very often because the condition deteriorates fast and the recent damage happened during the rain.
Absence of street lights
The condition has been made worse in the absence of good street lighting, says G. Naveen Kumar, an industrialist from the area.
Residents and workers of factories in the area are unable to safely use their vehicles and industrialists are finding it difficult to ferry goods to and from their factories.
The road condition turns worse because the rainwater fills the potholes.
T. Rajkumar, who also has his factory in the area, says the road has been bad for the past two years and the condition has been worsening by the day.
The local residents got together to petition the Coimbatore Corporation to be only told that the Food Corporation of India that had a warehouse in the area was in possession of the road and that the civic body could do very little.
The Ward (40) councillor R. Malliha says that for long the road has been the centre of a turf war between the Food Corporation of India and the Coimbatore Corporation and neither has arrived at a solution to the problem that concerns road users.
Sources familiar with the problem say that the FCI has been claiming that it is a private road and not open for public. There were even moves to block the road but after public outcry the Central Government agency was forced to withdraw its plan.
FCI officials in Coimbatore promised to provide their side of the story but did not.
Food Corporation of India that has a warehouse in the area is in possession of the road and that the civic body can do very little
