Several roads in Salt Lake continue to be in a battered condition, with loose aggregates strewn across stretches and dust filling the air as vehicles pass.
A brief drive through parts of Salt Lake on Saturday and Sunday threw up multiple spots and stretches where the road needs repairs. Salt Lake residents said it was a similar picture across the township.
While many arterial roads have been repaired, many others are still lying in neglect. The roads inside the blocks are worse off, they said.
The road leading to the office of West Bengal Power Development Corporation and the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences from the SAI Trainees Hostel is in tatters. Cars have to swerve multiple times to avoid depressions, potholes and worn-out surfaces.
The condition of the road near HB Block island is worse. The Salt Lake campuses of Our Lady Queen of the Missions School and IIT Kharagpur are situated along this stretch.
FE block
“Stretches of the road are not even fit for walking. Hundreds of school children cross this road every day,” said a resident.
Further east, the condition of the road near tank No. 12 was no better. Vehicles approaching the island near the tank to take another road have to go over the broken stretches. The road going towards Karunamoyee from the island is also in a poor state.
The worst would be the condition of the road going towards east from the EE
Block island rickshaw stand. The entire stretch is riddled with potholes and worn-out portions.
As one goes towards Mayur Niketan, a residential quarter for officers of a central public sector unit, the road condition worsens. It remains the same as one proceeds further.
A commuter told Metro that there were several stretches of roads in Salt
Lake where cars jumped flanks only to avoid large and deep potholes.
“One flank of a road is in a very poor state, while the other is not so bad. Cars take the relatively better flank, even if that means jumping flanks,” he said.
A woman from BD Block said even walking on roads inside the blocks was fraught with risks of injuring her feet. There are so many potholes and across so much width of the road that sometimes it becomes impossible to find a plane surface, she said.
“I prefer taking evening walks in the community grounds, but for many weeks after Durga Puja, the grounds were occupied with pandals and stuff left behind during the dismantling of the pandals,” she said.
After years of neglect, repairs of Salt Lake’s roads started in March. The state urban development department had released ₹25 crore for the repairs. The Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation and the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority
were assigned stretches for the repairs.
But the repairs have proved to be inadequate — the number of broken stretches was far more than what could be fixed.
Anita Mondal, the mayoral council member (roads), the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, said the civic body has sought fresh funds from the state government to repair the roads.
EE island near Mayur Niketan
“We are preparing road-wise estimates for repairs and sending them to the urban development department. We will do more repairs after the funds arrive,” she said.
She also blamed the rain for not being able to complete all repairs with available funds. “It is still raining. The repairs will be washed away if they are done while it rains,” she said.
“We have repaired more than 90% of the stretches assigned to us. We made top mastic asphalt layers on all the roads we repaired,” said a KMDA official.