Bidhannagar Municipality is planning to lease its 33 rotaries to advertising agencies for beautification at a time when police and the transport department have started trimming rotaries across Calcutta for smoother traffic flow.

Seven rotaries in the township — near PNB, ABN AMRO, Prashasan Bhavan, Karunamoyee, Bidhannagar College, EZCC and CA block — have been leased for beautification. The municipality will earn Rs 27 lakh annually from the advertising agencies that will maintain them.

“This is an experiment. If the project earns us revenue and makes Salt Lake look good, we will hand over the other rotaries for beautification,” said municipality chairman Biswajiban Majumder.

Traffic planners, residents and the police, however, are concerned about the problems caused by the rotaries.

“With four large billboards in a rotary facing the roads, it becomes difficult for motorists and pedestrians to see traffic on the other side. We fear an accident every time we approach a rotary,” said Pratim Saha, who works in a City Centre store.

“There has been a massive increase in the flow of vehicles into Salt Lake. Rotaries can ease congestion only if there is proper planning. Given the current traffic situation in Salt Lake, oval rotaries are the best bet,” said Prasad Ranjan Das, a retired chief architect of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation.

Senior police officers feel the rotaries only add to traffic congestion. “They consume a lot of road space and increase the chances of accident with vehicles having access to left and right turns all the time,” said a senior officer of North 24-Parganas police.

“Since Salt Lake rotaries are huge with diameters of over 50 metre, pedestrians find it difficult to cross the road. Vehicles bump into pedestrians near the rotaries,” he added.

Since January this year, there have been 16 major mishaps in Salt Lake, in which two were killed.

“The rotaries should be resized keeping in mind the peak-hour vehicular density —between 7,000 to 8,000 per hour — at major points in Salt Lake like Sector V, Karunamoyee, PNB, FD block connector, City Centre and Mayukh Bhavan.”

Transport department officials are also dissatisfied with the current arrangement.

“The average road width near the rotaries is hardly 7 metre. Trimming the rotaries will widen the road and minimise confusion. Rotaries and traffic signals do not go together but they coexist at many places in Salt Lake. The rotaries should be demolished,” said A.K. Das, the executive traffic and transport engineer of the transport department.

For the municipality officials, though, the rotaries serve their purpose.

“The rotaries were built to ease traffic congestion and still do so. The drive will only improve Salt Lake’s appearance,” said Somnath Mukherjee, the financial officer of the municipality.

He pointed out that to accommodate the increase in vehicular density, the PNB rotary has been trimmed by 20 per cent and the one at Karunamoyee has been made oval.

Residents would rather have even smaller rotaries than beautified ones.

“The City Centre rotary looks good. But if it were made smaller, the traffic flow would be smoother on weekends. The benefits of trimming the PNB rotary is evident,” said D.K. Ganguly, a resident of FD Block.