Stretches of VIP Road that connects the airport with the rest of the city, large parts of New Town and places along VIP Road were under knee-deep water till Tuesday afternoon, triggering traffic snarls on the artery.
Baghajatin Park.
Bishwarup DuttaA 1-km section near the Haldirams outlet was under water till Tuesday night.
On Tuesday morning, many cars and bikes on the airport-bound flank as well as the Ultadanga-flank of VIP Road stalled while trying to negotiate the flooded stretch.
Baguiati.
Bishwarup DuttaCommuters had the undercarriage of their cars scraped on potholes that were impossible to spot under the water. Workers manually cleared gully pits and opened manhole covers so that water could be drained out from VIP Road in front of the Haldiram crossing.
Chakgaria.
Bishwarup Dutta“We deployed men and suction machines but gully pits and channels are choked by cement, sand and stone chips. The water is not draining fast into the canals as they are already swollen,” said a Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation official who was overseeing the drainage operations along VIP Road.
Kestopur.
Bishwarup DuttaOfficials of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation and the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) said that the Bagjola and Kestopur canals were choked as they have not been dredged. Water from the Bagjola canal, which cuts across New Town, and the Kestopur canal, which flows along VIP Road, and their network channels breached their banks after the torrential rain.
Lake Town.
Bishwarup DuttaA state irrigation department official said the 38km-long Bagjola canal was last thoroughly desilted ahead of the 2017 monsoon. “The dredging has started but we have not reached the part that flows through New Town and Lake Town,” the official said.
Panchasayar.
Bishwarup Dutta“The authorities have neither carried out desilting nor have they removed the garbage from both these canals,” said New Town resident Samaresh Das.
