Pedestrians flounder through underpass

The much-delayed Dum Dum underpass was inaugurated amid fanfare in January. The lights installed in the tunnel meant for pedestrians and light vehicles were stolen on the night of the inauguration itself and have not been replaced. After dark, those using the tunnel are forced to walk the stretch, home to beggars and street dogs, in the dark. Dripping of drain water from the overbridge at the tunnel end is quite common. A portion of the pavement becomes muddy due to this and passers-by have no option but to get wet on their way to the Metro station. The pavement has a railing on the side but is too narrow to allow two adults to pass each other. During the office rush, the entire stretch takes a long time to walk through. Traffic snarls are a regular feature at the Nagerbazar end of the tunnel. Private buses halt there for several minutes bringing traffic to a standstill inside the vehicle tunnel and beyond.

Kalyan Ghosh, Baguiati.

Hospital in dire straits

About four lakh people depend on the Krishnaganj hospital in Nadia. Although the hospital?s status has been upgraded recently, a lot of infrastructure is still lacking. There is no physician in some of the departments, the surroundings are dirty and the toilets stink. I request the health department to address the problem.

Prahlad Agarwala, Majdia, Nadia.

Safety first at seasonal fest

Charak mela at Chhatubabur Bazar on Chaitra Sankranti in the month of March attracts a huge number of visitors. A lot of elderly people, women and children assemble at the venue. This year, the event drew a huge gathering and it almost resulted in a stampede. The administration should make better arrangements to control the crowd and organise the festival in a safe manner.

Debaprasad Mukherjee, Nayapatty Road.

Mobile intrusion

My mobile phone service provider keeps bombarding me with SMSs promoting certain products throughout the day and sometimes even in the middle of the night. Doesn?t this amount to infringement on privacy? All subscribers may not need SMSs reminding them that it is time to recharge or offering ring tones, cricket scores, etc. The cell phone service provider should inform the customers beforehand of the option (if any) to block these SMSs. Also, the DSAs of leading banks harass people with calls on their mobile phones for promoting their products. These days they even call up at residences around 10 pm offering credit cards. Marketing people of one of the recent entrants in the telecom sector had called me at 10.30 pm to coax me to take their landline connection. He, however, could not justify the inappropriate time of the call. The government should introduce strict laws against such practices by the companies.

R. Seth, Mayfair Road.