Quarter of a billion levs is the sum prepared by the Road Infrastructure Agency of Bulgaria for companies that will service the national roads over the next 48 months. The largest ever distribution of portions in the industry will happen during the holiday month of August, when the country will be run by a caretaker government and the National Assembly will be disbanded. Moreover, instead of the traditional one-year contracts for each regional traffic management what have been announced are mega-tenders for the six big regions of the country. Whether the planned forthcoming change in government has actually prompted the move of the head of road agency Stefan Chaikov who took this surprising move with long-term effects one can only guess. But the fact is that so far the tradition was different.
Most funds – 49.2 million levs will be provided for the South Central region. It includes District Kardjali, Pazardjik, Plovdiv, Smolyan, Haskovo and the total length of the roads there is the greatest – 3,384 km. Surprisingly, the second largest portion of the money is to be allocated to Northwest Bulgaria. To Vidin, Vratsa, Montana, Lovech and Pleven will be earmarked 44.4 million levs. The smallest pie goes to the Northeast region – 34.3 million lev.
Documentation says that the impressive amounts will go to preventive, ongoing and winter maintenance of roads, as well as for repair and rehabilitation works in emergency situations. According to the explanation of the Road Infrastructure Agency preventive maintenance includes activities such as closure of surface cracks, laying a new asphalt layers, stabilization services, strengthening of embankments and others.
The routine maintenance covers cleaning of small landslides and debris, mowing, leveling, shaping and grooming services, installing dividing strips, recreation grounds, repair of small destructions, removal of distortions such as road waves, cleaning of mud, painting of steel structures of bridges, railings, signs, etc. All these things have merely been lacking for years although previously the state allocated money for such endeavors.
Cash is provided even for cleaning and removal of damaged roadside sites, fountains, monuments and gazebos. It will be wise for drivers to indicate to the road agency when such sites are neglected. Otherwise the sums will again go into someone’s pocket without having done much good to the state. That sort of things have happened before, there is no doubt about that. It is enough for one to drive along the main road E-79 (one of the busiest and most important in the country) to see that for years no one have taken care of roadside trees – shrubs and trees hanging right over the lanes and limiting visibility.
The situation is similar with the winter maintenance of the national road network. In this case there are quite reasonable suspicions that things could get worse, since for snow removal and servicing the roads in winter up to now were recruited individually specialized companies. The new tender, however, means that for each area a company will be selected that among other things will have to execute the above mentioned works.
According to the description of the task, in addition to standard winter maintenance activities, the selected companies will be required to provide and snow protection for the roads, creating roadside green belts, and building earth dikes or installing temporary fences and portable inventory shields. Mowing lawns, cutting of trees and removal of garbage in the road vicinity, which may contribute to the formation of snowdrifts, also will be among the tasks of the winners. If at least one of these things is done properly, it will be easy to know this winter.
The BANKER
