Hazra-Tollygunge road repair on the cards

The road between Hazra crossing and Tollygunge Phari will go through an overhaul.

The underground utilities along the stretch will be shifted to one corridor.

Engineers of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) said decades-old water supply lines run under the roughly 3.5km stretch of the arterial road connecting Hazra and Tollygunge Phari and electricity cables of the CESC as well. The stretch includes portions of SP Mukherjee Road and Deshapran Sashmal Road.

Firhad Hakim, the chairperson of the civic body’s board of administrators, said on Saturday, before the road repair was taken up all underground utilities would be shifted to one side of the road.

Over the years the water lines have developed several leaks that have weakened the bed above which the bituminous layer is laid. Besides, the road had to be dug up whenever a leak was noticed in the water lines. The road repairs following the fixing of the leaks created an undulation in the portion that was dug up.

“We will repair the road between Hazra and Tollygunge that has become a hopping road. We have already prepared the DPR (detailed project report),” said Hakim. 

The detailed project report has been prepared and submitted to the municipal affairs department for approval, said an engineer.

The municipal affairs department will send the DPR to the finance department for funding. The project can take off only after the finance department sanctions funds for the work.

“The work will take one-and-a-half years to complete from the day we begin working on the road surface. The estimated project cost is Rs 9crore,” said one civic engineer.

Shifting utility lines to one side of the road will reduce damage to the road surface in future. Any further repair of the utility lines will not require digging the road in the middle.