About 250 residents of the Vivekananda Park area in Behala took out a procession on Sunday to highlight the problems on the narrow Mahatma Gandhi (MG) Road, which links Thakurpukur and densely populated areas like Sodepur, Haridevpur and Naskarpara with the city.

There are several schools and hospitals on the six-km stretch, which is also used by thousands daily on their way to Tollygunge Metro Railway station and back.

“It takes me around 35 minutes to reach Tollygunge Karunamoyee from Haridevpur — which is only about 600 metres away,” says Tamal Roy Chowdhury, a member of Vivekananda Park Athletic Club, which organised Sunday’s rally.

Metro travelled the road to identify the problem points...

Road width

Town planners feel that MG Road needs to be 100 ft wide but encroachments have narrowed the width down to 15 ft near Keorapukur Bazaar and Jibonmohini Ghosh Market. Two buses or trucks are enough to block the road.

Trucks and cycle vans ferry vegetables to various south Calcutta bazaars from the market.

There is a wholesale fish market near Kabardanga that jostles for space with an autorickshaw stand.

At least 350 autorickshaws ply on three different routes along MG Road.

School & hospitals

For students of Assembly of God Church’s Kabordanga branch, CNI Boys’ and Girls’ and primary schools like Judgebagan and Kaibalyanagar, the ride or walk to school is time-consuming and fraught with risks.

The students of the blind school in the area have it equally bad.

“It should take only 10 to 12 minutes for me to get to school, though it normally takes around 40 minutes,” said local resident Tamali Chakraborty, who cycles to her school.

Patients from various parts of the state and Bangladesh, on their way to Thakurpukur Cancer Centre Welfare Home and Research Institute, also have to suffer the long traffic snarls.

Those going to MR Bangur Hospital on Deshapran Sashmal Road from Thakurpukur, too, are caught in the jam.

An Indian Oil godown adds to the traffic chaos.

Ceremony houses & apartments

Numerous private and government housing estates — including the West Bengal Housing Board’s estate with 1,500 flats — have sprung up on the stretch. With people moving into the new buildings, congestion on the road is becoming more acute by the day.

There are about a dozen ceremony houses, like Sonamati and Sonar Kella, on either side of the artery. Guests often park on the main road, holding up traffic.

Footpaths

There is no footpath on the stretch. No wonder, pedestrians are often involved in mishaps.

Attempts & failures

In the 1960s, shopkeepers on MG Road, like Fatik Majhi, Nityagopal Das, Jamshed Mondol and Prabhas Mondol, received demolition notices. “My father and other landowners had refused to accept the paltry compensation package. The deal fell through,” said Das’s son Babu.

Paribahan Samasya Sammelan Committee (Behala East), a residents’ body, has been writing to the public works department (PWD) minister Kshiti Goswami and the mayor since the 1990s.

Officialspeak

Mayoral council member Kanti Ganguly visited the area and wrote to Goswami about encroachments “either by construction of structures or extension of existing shops”.

In the letter, dated September 4, 1998, Ganguly had suggested a joint drive by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) and the PWD to “clear all encroachments and restore the road”.

“There is no scope for widening MG Road, as many structures will have to be pulled down. The PWD is conducting surveys for widening the road but the idea is not practical,” Goswami told Metro.“Some portions of the road are in very bad shape. We will restore them shortly,” he added.