The New Town authorities are yet to repair stretches of roads that had caved in after being lashed by rain last September.
Last Saturday, an elderly resident of Sukhobrishti Housing Complex who was walking home after shopping for vegetables and groceries, slipped and fell into one of the ditches and was left with a twisted ankle and bruises.
Sandeepan Maity, 65, was taken to a private hospital in New Town by his family, They feared that he had broken his ankle.
“There is very little space left for pedestrians because of encroachment on pavements by hawkers, who have now set up stalls on both flanks of the service lane. Adding to that an e-rickshaw stand has come up there leaving us little space to walk. I had forgotten that there was a huge subsidence and walked straight into it,” Maity said.
Portions of roads outside several housing complexes, including DLF New Town Heights, Eden Court and Sukhobrishti Housing Complex, had caved in after there was waterlogging for weeks following heavy rain in September.
The crater in which Maity fell outside the Sukhobrishti Housing Complex is at least 4-feet deep and more than 20-feet in width.
A carter outside the DLF New Town Heights housing complex is even bigger in size compared to the one outside Sukhobrishti.
In order to reduce the depth of the craters the New Town Kolkata Development authority had filled them with sand.
But with time the jagged edges of the carters jut out putting motorists and pedestrians at risk.
Even the fences erected around them are flimsy. They have no reflectors which make them difficult to spot at night by motorists.
An NKDA engineer said waterlogging destroyed the bituminous surface of the road and led to water seepage, weakening the soil below the asphalt layer.
According to the official, the portions of roads that have subsided have been covered with soil to see whether the lower layers of the soil can support the weight.
“We have listed all the places where the roads have caved in and we will begin repairs soon,” the official added.
Samaresh Das of the residents’ group, New Town Forum and News, said it was high time that the authorities started the repairs.
“These are clearly putting people at risk in New Town,” said Das.
