Salt Lake roads cry for repairs before Kolkata International Book Fair

The roads and arteries across Salt Lake have started resembling village dirt tracks, dotted with potholes and craters.

The 46th edition of the Kolkata International Book Fair is just around the corner. Thousands of visitors are expected to make their way to Central Park which will play host to the fair. The Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, however, is yet to start repairing the broken stretches.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is expected to inaugurate the fair on January 30 which run till February 12.

The Telegraph drove around the township on Monday and found that all main arteries leading to the Central Park fairground, including First Avenue, Second Avenue and even parts of Broadway riddled with craters and large potholes.

Poor state of the road in front of Purta Bhavan in Salt Lake.

Bishwarup Dutta

The road that leads to Sector V from Karunamoyee is riddled with craters and potholes. The First Avenue that leads to Central Park and the Karunamoyee intersection — one of the busiest in Salt Lake — is riddled with potholes and in several places near the Sen Mahasay bus stop sections have caved in leading to sudden large undulations.

A battered road near the Karunamoyee bus stand.

Bishwarup Dutta

In front of City Centre Salt Lake, the traffic police have placed guardrails and cones to ensure vehicles don’t drive into these broken patches unsuspectingly. All the roads had got patchwork repairs before the Pujas are again now riddled with craters and potholes, said residents.

A KMDA engineer said a road surface laid with mastic asphalt or concrete easily outlasts a surface redone with bitumen. Mastic asphalt could be laid in a short span of time and even in between rains.

The surface around the manhole in front of the Sen Mahasay bus stop in Salt Lake’s AE Block has eroded, exposing the metal cover.

Bishwarup Dutta

But the civic authorities keep choosing patchwork as a means to maintain roads that eventually get back to their old battered state fast.

Several contractors that are entrusted with the task of maintaining the roads in these areas said they have not been receiving payments for patchwork repairs on time.

“We have not received the payments for repairing the roads for the last couple of years,” said a contractor.

Mayor Krishna Chakraborty said that she was aware of the situation and repairs will be carried out soon.

“We have identified the stretches where the situation is bad and we will carry out repairs soon,” said Chakraborty.