After being hauled up by Calcutta High Court, the state government placed a report on Tuesday in the division bench of acting Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice Asit Kumar Bishi, saying it had already sanctioned Rs 5 crore for repairing roads cratered with tram tracks.

Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC) officers said the sum was merely a drop in the ocean. It would require at least Rs 53.5 crore to repair the 40-km tram tracks that snake through the city.

?We can only do some patchwork with this money,? a CTC officer said. ?No thorough repairs, as are required, will be possible. Whatever is done will get washed away in the rain.?

Echoing his views, the bench asked the state government to increase its allocation for road repairs in the coming budget.

?For now, we are accepting the sanction (of Rs 5 crore) keeping in mind that it is the end of a financial year,? the judges observed. ?We hope that advocate-general Balai Ray will impress upon the government the need to repair the city?s roads and tram tracks.?

The court also directed the government to proceed immediately with track repairs.

CTC officers said from Thursday they would prioritise the roads to be taken up for repairs.

?Given the funds constraints, we have to first repair road intersections where the poor condition of the tracks is holding up traffic and causing jams,? an officer said.

They indicated that the roads to be accorded priority will include Chittaranjan Avenue?s intersections with BB Ganguly Street, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bidhan Sarani and Rabindra Sarani.

A five-member committee constituted by the court will monitor the repairs.

The state government, too, has set up a four-member technical committee, which will assess the CTC?s estimate of the total cost required to repair the tram tracks.

The court on Tuesday asked the government?s committee to work in close consultation with the committee it had appointed.

Two city lawyers, Idris Ali and Sreemoyee Mitra, initiated the case in the high court, alleging that the poor condition of city roads was raising the toll in road accidents.

Following the petition, the bench had asked all the road-repairing agencies, like the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), public works department, Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority, Calcutta Port Trust and the CTC to improve the condition of city roads and to file a compliance report before it.

All the agencies, except for the CMC and the CTC, failed to carry out the order. The CMC told the court that it was impossible to improve roads unless the CTC repaired the tram tracks. The CTC said tracks could not be repaired unless the government sanctioned Rs 53.5 crore for the purpose.