Sector V may have IT sector employees working in swanky office buildings but residents of the neighbourhood claim they are neglected. People of AN Block are fed up of the shanties, garbage and especially the garages that park their customers’ cars blocking their lanes.
AN Block lies on the Sector V side of the Eastern Drainage Canal. On approaching from AL Block in Sector II, one would reach AN Block taking a left from the Swami Vivekananda statue that stands at the entry point of Sector V. An equally prominent landmark would be old cars dumped on the sides.
“Today itself my Uber nearly rammed into a Sumo full of kids at this junction,” said a resident of AN Block on Wednesday, asking not to be named. “Cars from these garages block the entire stretch, reducing road space for other vehicles trying to cross. Our streets were dark for months and only got lit up two or three days ago. I hope the illumination is here to stay.”
AN Block is also infamous as it housed the Saradha office at Midland Park. “After the police sealed that building this lane has got lonely, especially after dark. It’s commonplace for car mechanics and garage owners to relax with liquor bottles out in the open as soon as office-goers leave and volume of traffic reduces. Things get noisy and sometimes they break into fights,” said a man who runs a tea stall in the area. Others say country liquor and marijuana sell in the vicinity too.
There are a couple of colleges near the lane and its students have to bear the brunt. “Sometimes we have to step out of college as late as 7pm but this lane is dark and full of drunkards then,” said Aanchal Luharuwalla, a student of the nearby IAM Institute of Hotel Management who lives in FE Block. “They laugh and scream which makes us uncomfortable. We try and walk in groups but that’s not possible all the time. I wish there were some police personnel deployed in the area.”
The police is aware of the situation. “AL Block is a volatile area,” says inspector in charge of the Sector V police station Nirmal Majhi. “We can’t stop drunken brawls all the time but we conduct raids once every month.”
AN Block falls under the purview of Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA) and when informed about the problem, its chairman Debashis Sen said he would look into the matter. “No one has filed a formal complaint about the issue to us but we would still look into it,” he said.
