Creek Row, a quick escape from the clogged arteries of Sealdah leading to the central business district, has been closed to traffic for nearly a fortnight because of the civic body’s slo-mo job of pulling down an unsafe building.

Senior traffic police officers said engineers of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) had told them that they would take three to four days at the most to demolish a three-storey building that had partially collapsed on July 18.

Twelve days later, only the roof and portions of the top floor of the building at 11 Raja Subodh Mullick Square have been demolished, maintaining the city’s tradition of making a mockery of deadlines.

A dispute over ownership of the condemned structure — Calcutta University is one of the claimants — has been pending in court for years.

With the civic bosses unable to say when the demolition job will be completed, commuters might have to suffer for several more weeks.

“The rush-hour snarls extend till the northern end of the Sealdah flyover whenever Creek Row is closed. SN Banerjee Road is also getting clogged as private vehicles that used to take Creek Row are now headed there,” said a traffic police officer.

Workers engaged by a contractor to pull down the decrepit building aren’t just doing the job slowly, some are allegedly turning up at the site well past noon in the absence of supervision.

“The civic body had told us that work would start early so that the demolition was completed as quickly as possible. Accordingly, we blocked the road from 7am for a few days, only to see their men turn up at noon,” the officer said.

On Monday, the police decided to close Creek Row only after the workers arrived. Nobody came.

The CMC bosses said they were unaware about work progressing slowly.

“We give contracts for demolition jobs. I have to ask the contractor why the workers did not turn up on Monday,” said Debasish Chakraborty, director general, buildings (II), in the CMC.

Municipal commissioner Khalil Ahmed too was unaware of the status of work. “I don’t have the information on this,” he told Metro.

Creek Row connects AJC Bose Road to Raja Subodh Mullick Square and is favoured by many who use private transport or taxis.

“Buses are not allowed on Creek Row. Also, there are no traffic signals along the road. You can reach Wellington from Moulali in two minutes, but the same distance will take 15 minutes if you take SN Banerjee Road,” said a bank official.

Over the past two weeks, many motorists have taken a turn towards Creek Row without knowing that the road is closed from noon till 7pm. “There isn’t a single no-entry signage anywhere except at the mouth of the lane from AJC Bose Road,” said a businessman who had a difficult time getting his car back on track after hitting Creek Row.