Sarfaraz Nawaj, 42, who works as a journalist with a vernacular daily, fractured his left hand and leg when he fell off his bike after hitting a crater on the newly broadened Bank Mor-Sindri Road near Bastacola on September 23.

The resident of Wasseypur has been bedridden since then.

“I may have died on the spot had I not been wearing a helmet. The plaster on my leg has recently been removed but my hand will take some more time to heal,” Nawaj said on Sunday.

He said a blacksmith working on the side of the road near the accident spot had told him that mishaps were a regular affair on that stretch.

“A couple on a bike had met with a similar fate just 10 minutes before my accident,” Nawaj quoted the blacksmith as saying.

Nawaj wondered why the authorities were so callous about the maintenance of such an important road that connects Dhanbad to Sindri through Jharia.

“A probe should be conducted into why the road developed potholes within 18 months of its construction,” he said.

Former councillor of Ward 36 in Jharia, Rustam Ansari, said the condition of the road spoke volumes about the quality of infrastructure projects in the state.

“That crater had formed around three months back, but the road construction department did not bother to repair it,” he said.

He said leaking water supply pipelines of Mineral Area Development Authority (Mada) and faulty engineering were the main reasons behind development of craters and potholes.

“Slopes should have been developed on the sides of the road for water to slide off. Instead, the road has been constructed in such as way that the water gets accumulated right in the middle, leading to damage,” he added.

The road construction department had broadened and strengthened the 25.71km Bank Mor-Sindri Road with the help of contractor Ms Balkrishana Bhalotia Construction at a cost of Rs 44.83 crore.

However, the underground water pipelines were not shifted because of the lack of co-ordination between Mada and the road construction department.

Water leaking from the old and rusty pipes leads to the development of potholes.

Amrendra Kumar Saha, executive engineer of the road construction department, said he had informed his counterpart in Mada, Indresh Shukla, about the need to repair the leak in their pipelines in Bastacola.

“The road can’t be repaired unless the leaks in the pipes are fixed,” he said.

Shukla said he had instructed Mada assistant engineers to repair the pipelines on a priority basis. “As far as I know, the repair work has been completed on Saturday,” he said.