Several roads across Salt Lake are in a perilous state, riddled with deep craters and potholes, leaving residents and commuters anxious and frustrated. Despite promises of timely repairs, many stretches remain risky to navigate, both in residential and commercial zones.
Metro surveyed multiple pockets of the township on September 7 and found
widespread damage. In many places, large craters span more than two lanes of three-lane roads. The top layer has worn off, turning entire stretches into dusty, broken trails.
One of the worst areas is the stretch connecting GD Island to Salt Lake Bypass — a key route used by ambulances and public transport, including buses to New Town. Craters more than a foot deep and as wide as 7-8 feet are common here.
“After buses were stopped from plying on the Chingrighata flyover, all buses headed to New Town from EM Bypass take this road. It’s an arterial road, but the authorities seem least concerned,” said a resident.
FD Block is also in disrepair. “Almost all roads here are in poor condition. They haven’t been repaired in a long time. Many elderly people take rickshaws to go to markets or visit doctors. This is hardly a road,” said Santanu Biswas, a resident. Several in the area voiced fears about travelling by rickshaw or Toto, especially on roads where one wrong bump could cause the vehicle to topple.
The condition is worsened by dysfunctional street lights in several areas. Poor visibility at night makes walking or riding through these lanes even more hazardous.
The area near City Centre — one of Salt Lake’s busiest spots, especially before the festive season — had large craters near the traffic island. Cars and buses were seen swerving dangerously to avoid them.
BJ and CJ Blocks near Karunamoyee are in similarly bad shape. The road outside the entrance to Bidyut Bhavan has lost its top layer entirely. A massive crater has left barely a single lane usable. “The road is dusty because the top layer is gone. Craters force us to veer suddenly, even as vehicles come up behind us. I feel afraid to ride my bicycle,” said Aritra De, a delivery agent with a food delivery app.
The Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation had launched a road repair programme earlier this year. On February 28, Bidhannagar’s MLA Sujit Bose announced that repairs would begin on March 3 and be completed “in a month or 10 more days”. At the time, he told a news conference: “We have received ₹25 crore from the urban development department, and the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) will spend another ₹9.5 crore, of which ₹4.5 crore has already been released.”
Engineers had said that the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation would repair 22km of roads and the KMDA another 10km. However, much of the promised work appears to remain unfinished. Bose could not be reached on Sunday.
Bidhannagar mayor Krishna Chakraborty said patchwork repairs are ongoing. “It has rained so much this year that the roads have deteriorated. We will undertake thorough repairs after Puja,” she told Metro on Sunday.
She added that some repairs have been completed using the allocated funds. Currently, the road between the Wipro crossing and Karunamoyee is being repaired with a top mastic asphalt layer, with work underway.