KOHAT, Nov 20: The city roads, which were not repaired by the district administration despite repeated demands of people, have been reconstructed overnight miraculously.

The change in the behaviour of city bosses is not a result of any revolution but an effort on the part of officials to show their efficiency to Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, who is visiting Kohat on Monday. “The roads have been repaired because they lead to the venue of the public meeting of chief minister,” said a resident.

He said that the officials, who were turning down the appeals of people for several years, deployed an army of workers to fill hundreds of depressions on the important city roads to show their efficiency.

The district administration, during preparations for the chief minister’s visit, repaired all roads starting from King Gate up to Women and Children Hospital by putting shingle and bitumen and cementing the patches within few hours.

The people had been urging their elected representatives since long to repair the said road, which leads to the hospital, to facilitate ailing children and women. But all their requests and appeals fell on deaf ears.

“It is the first time that we see the army of sweepers busy in cleaning the roads and removing dust from them with brooms after repair. The repair work being carried out on temporary basis has been continued since Sunday evening on war footings,” said another resident of the area.

He said that the chief minister should direct the highway authority and tehsil municipal administration to reconstruct those roads in which substandard material was used and as a result they were washed away by rains.

The residents of the area said that local administration should also construct the road in front of Rescue 15 office. The court had already directed the authorities to lay a new layer of road by removing the old ones as it had raised it above the level of shops and markets.

They also drew the attention of the chief minister towards the absence of water disposal stem along the roads owing to which rainwater turned them into pools. They said that the chief minister should also order inquiry into corruption in the construction of roads, which were being repaired and reconstructed every year owing to use of substandard material.