Chandigarh, April 17 -- In a major policy change, the state public works department (PWD) has now decided to award new road carpeting projects to the contractors building link roads in rural areas with a compulsory clause of repairing it for five years.

Earlier, this clause applied to the repair and construction of major district roads, but now it has been decided to cover rural roads too being built by the PWD and the Punjab Mandi Board. Notably, as per old arrangements, road projects were awarded in such a way that the contractor was free after laying carpet, and in case of any damage to the road, the PWD used to allot repair works to other contractors through tenders.

For the addition of repair clause, according to a senior PWD funct...