The snail’s pace of work has slowed down further at Park Street, Gariahat, Lockgate and Esplanade, forcing a deadline dilemma.

The Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners (HRBC), implementing agency for construction of the flyovers and road improvement in these areas, has woken up to the fact that the entire project cannot possibly be completed before May 29, 2005.

The financial closure of the flyover projects, with a loan from the Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC), had been slated for May 29, 2004.

“We have extended the validity of loan closure and spoken to the JBIC about it. A formal proposal will be sent by the state transport department in mid-April,” HRBC vice-chairman Sadhan Banerjee said on Friday.

According to Banerjee, the HRBC and the bank have discussed the matter. “Our impression is that the proposal will be cleared,” he added. But the bank would examine the formal proposal before giving the green signal, Banerjee clarified.

A large chunk of work remains incomplete on the restoration of roads at Esplanade and Gariahat. The flyovers at Park Street and Lockgate are also far from ready.

Work on these twins, costing Rs 68.92 crore, started on November 15, 2001, and was scheduled to end by November 14, 2003. The revised date was March 31, 2004 for Park Street and February 28, 2004 for Lockgate.

The HRBC has failed to meet the revised deadlines.

“Several reasons have contributed to the delay. Sometimes, the contractors were to blame. Otherwise, clearance for traffic diversion — essential for work on the flyovers — took a long time. There was also the problem of relocating underground utilities,” said Banerjee.

The new date for completion of the Lockgate flyover is April 30, 2004. The road below is set to be ready by June.

“But the Park Street flyover will take longer. It is running months behind schedule. We expect it to be ready by September,” Banerjee said.

The agency does not want to take any chances this time, as the state government is already “embarrassed” about the delay, officials said.

So, it has asked the JBIC to extend the date of loan closure to May 2005.

HRBC vice-chairman Banerjee said extension of the loan closure date would not make any difference to the terms and conditions of the agreement between the agency and the bank.

“There is no financial loss or gain involved in extending the deadline,” he explained. “We want to take advantage of this extra time by carrying out some additional work with the leftover funds,” he added.