TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Roads are for vehicles and people only, not for drying palay and other grains.

Department of Public Works and Highway-Kalinga Engineering District Head Alexander Castañeda reiterated the order banning the drying of palay and other farm products along highways.

Because of the traffic hazard the practice poses to motorists and the public, Castañeda called on local government units to reactivate their ordinances regulating the practice of drying palay, corn, and coffee on concrete roads, which is a common site along the highways in the province.

Castañeda said businessmen should have their own drying facilities in private lots and refrain from using the highway as drying facility.

Several barangay councils here passed resolutions prohibiting the use of paved roads as drying places for palay and other farm produce, but these were largely ignored.

There should be close coordination by LGUs and the police in the effective implementation of these ordinances to prevent any accident on the road, Castañeda said.

He said roads are constructed for motorists, not as public facility for private interest, adding even big time grain traders are also using the highways as drying facilities.

Castañeda’s order is an offshoot to an earlier statement of Public Works and Highways Sec. Rogelio Singson who said that to keep pedestrians safe, rights of way have to be free of any obstruction like stores, sheds basketball courts, plants, and construction materials.

Aside from using roads as “solar dryers,” the DPWH also prohibits using roads for raising animals, vending, repair of vehicles, sports, disposal of wastewater, and for washing or drying clothes.