A crater under the Sealdah-Dankuni rail track near Bally has become a permanent fixture. The ten feet wide and twelve feet long and two feet deep crater has been there for the past five years and more. It hampers the movement of traffic all over the year but none of the authorities have taken the trouble of fixing it. 

The Bally Municipality sometimes fills the crater with pieces of bricks and rubbish but within a few days, it is back to its old self. A large number of trucks, buses and private cars take this route both from GT Road and from the Bally Bridge to reach National Highway 2 and National Highway 6. “Riding a two-wheeler under the bridge is very challenging. The crater is deep and at least ten feet long. Bikers fall on the ground while trying to negotiate the crater,” said Swapan Das, a resident of Nimtala, Bally. He said that a large number of bikers were injured everyday while trying to pass this stretch. “Accidents are taking place mostly at night. There is only a streetlight at one corner of the road that fails to illuminate the stretch and one cannot fathom the depth of the crater,” he said. He said that the crater was created on the spot because a large number of heavy trucks from North 24 Parganas passed this stretch every day. 

“I do not understand what prevents the Bally Municipality to undertake a thorough repair of the road. It is an important link road between GT Road and the approach road to NH2 and NH6,” said Sudip Das, a resident of Nischinda, Bally. 

The trucks and buses lurch dangerously while driving through the crater. The size of the crater increases during monsoon as water fills the crater and soft soil and loose pieces of bricks give in under the pressure of the wheels.

“Buses and trucks with large wheels face less hazard while driving through the crater than two- and three-wheelers. But they also have to negotiate very carefully or can overturn any moment,” said Panchu Ruidas, driver of a Baranagar–Bally route bus. 

Bally Municipality claims that though the area falls within the municipality area, the onus of repairing the road falls on the state PWD. “The road on which the crater has developed is the extension of GT Road. The PWD authority should repair the road for the smooth flow of traffic. However, since the road falls within our area, we often undertake patchwork in the interest of the people,” said Arunava Lahiri, chairman, Bally Municipality. He said that Bally Municipality could not undertake thorough repair on the PWD road, so, they did only patchwork. 

The engineers of Bally Municipality claimed that the crater was created because of a leak in the water supply line that floods the spot all the year round. “The soil turns soft and a crater is formed under the pressure of the heavy trucks and buses,” said a civic engineer.

Amrita Ghosh