ROAD
A 7.5km stretch of Diamond Harbour Road between Taratala and Joka, the main artery in the western part of the city and the primary link between Calcutta and South 24-Parganas.
CONDITION
Almost the entire stretch resembles a village road of red soil and gravel; driving is a bone-rattling nightmare. “We are having a hard time managing traffic because of the condition of the road. We often use megaphones to request motorists to take other roads,” said a police officer.
The potholed road has received so much brick filling over the past few months that it is now red and rickety.
The stretches along Ajanta cinema, near the Behala Siddheswari Kali temple, Behala Chowrasta, Silpara, Kadamtala and Thakurpukur Bazar are the worst off. The road is undulating and the craters so large that vehicles are forced to swerve dangerously.
Autorickshaws on a number of ravaged routes have stopped plying.
A garage owner near Thakurpukur (above) says he has 23 cars in his garage now, most of them with damaged suspension and broken silencer pipes. “I have a small garage for only 12 cars. But there is so much demand these days that I have to park the other cars on the road,” said Goutam Pal, the garage owner.
IT’S BEEN LIKE THIS FOR...
The only thing worse than the terrible condition of the stretch is how long it has been that way. The road started crumbling and the craters cropping up in November 2014. Since the start of the monsoon, Metro had been writing on poor conditions of city roads with repeated mentions of DH Road, EM Bypass, VIP Road, Prince Anwar Shah Connector, Park Circus Connector and Jessore Road. With Puja a month away, all the other roads have at least undergone patchwork, if not repair. But not DH Road, which is a mess.
WHY HASN’T IT BEEN REPAIRED?
The public works department, which maintains Diamond Harbour Road, says it wants to relay the road instead of doing patchwork that would not last more than a few months. But the project to relay the road has been inordinately delayed — even by Calcutta standards — because of red-tapism and lack of coordination among different agencies.
According to Nabanna sources, the first tender for the project was floated last November, but it drew no bidders. The government floated the tender again in February this year, when Adhunik Infrastructures Private Limited won the bid for Rs 66 crore. But the company has not started repair work. All it has done is dig a 50-metre stretch near Ashoka cinema hall revealing a tangle of utility lines underneath that have to be shifted for the work to proceed.
“We had a five-month window to mobilise manpower and machinery. And then when we started the job, several hurdles came in our way,” said an official of Adhunik.
The PWD then appointed Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES) as a consultant and a report is expected later this month. “Once we get the report, the work will start in full swing,” a PWD official said.
WHAT ARE THE HURDLES?
• Underground sewer and water pipelines of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation that need to be removed before the start of work.
• Cables lines of CESC and Calcutta Telephones, which also run underneath the road need to be removed.
• Six stations of the Joka-BBD Bag Metro are being constructed on DH Road now, which has resulted in a major portion of the road being cordoned off.
• A water and sewer line maintenance work by Calcutta Environmental Improvement Project is on at two other places that have further blocked a portion of the road.
To ease the stalemate, the PWD secretary had called a meeting with senior officials of all the agencies last month, but…
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
According to the plan, the PWD would peel off the road surface — at least whatever is left of it — between Taratala and Joka and relay it again. The relayed road would have a depth of 5ft and be 12-metre wide. A major portion of the road would be made of concrete upon which the bituminous layer would be spread.
WILL IT HAPPEN... EVER?
PWD officials said they would start a patchwork repair of the stretch by the end of this month but added that the complete revamp of the road would not be possible anytime before June 2016. June being the month the monsoon arrives in Bengal, Behala residents might have to wait another Puja for their main artery to be usable again.
Text: Tamaghna Banerjee
Pictures: Bishwarup Dutta
I dread driving down Diamond Harbour Road because…. Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com
