A Puja coordination meeting to plan civic services turned into a chorus of complaints about battered roads across the city, as several Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) borough chairpersons voiced frustration over the prolonged deterioration of key thoroughfares.
Mayor Firhad Hakim, who chaired the meeting on Monday, said patchwork repairs would be completed before Puja — provided there’s no rain in the coming days. “If the weather holds, we will finish the repairs by September 15,” he said.
Kolkata Police have already submitted a list of 389 broken stretches across 180 roads to the civic body. Multiple agencies that attended the meeting — including the KMC, Kolkata Police, the public works department (PWD), irrigation department, Calcutta Port Authority, and Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners (HRBC) — are custodians of these roads.
Worst stretches
From Sukanta Setu in Jadavpur to Biren Roy Road (West) in Behala, and PK Mukherjee Road connecting Chitpore and Tala bridges, deteriorated roads dominated the discussion.
Other critical stretches flagged during the meeting included: Prince Anwar Shah Road, EM Bypass between Shahid Khudiram (Briji) Metro station and Kamalgazi, BT Road, Kankurgachi underpass, Taratala Road, and the Remount Road arm of Garden Reach flyover.
“Sukanta Setu is in terrible condition. The street lights don’t work either. It’s been this way for a year,” said Tarakeswar Chakraborty, chairperson of Borough XI.
Sanhita Das, chairperson of Borough XIV, added: “A portion of Biren Roy Road (West) under the KMC was repaired before the monsoon, but rain washed it away.”
A Behala resident corroborated this and said the stretch west of Shakuntala Park is in even worse shape and was barely repaired.
Das also raised concerns over Taratala Road, where she said residents “commute risking their lives”.
Parking violations
The issue of illegal parking also cropped up during the meeting, with Debashis Kumar, mayoral council member in charge of parking, asking Kolkata Police to ramp up enforcement in the run-up to Durga Puja.
Kumar recounted how a traffic jam in Gariahat forced him to abandon his car, call a friend and return home on a two-wheeler. “Purna Das Road and Rashbehari Avenue were so congested due to illegal parking that nothing could move,” he said.
He later added: “Parking is allowed on one side of Purna Das Road, but vehicles were parked on both sides. It’s a narrow, two-way road, and parking on both sides is bound to make traffic crawl. People need to behave more responsibly, too.”
A senior police officer at the meeting assured action on the issue.
Bio-toilets
A borough chairperson raised the need for more bio-toilets during Puja, but Kumar pointed out a recurring problem — lack of maintenance.
“These toilets turn into a nuisance when no one is assigned to clean them. Every year, I get calls from residents complaining about the stench,” Kumar said. He stressed the need for proper maintenance and urged that agencies assign at least one cleaner per bio-toilet. “Agencies install the toilets but often fail to deploy personnel. We must ensure that each bio-toilet has a dedicated cleaner.”
Frequent flood zones
Mayor Hakim instructed police officers to compile a separate list of roads that suffer recurrent waterlogging, which leads to frequent damage. These roads will be treated differently from those scheduled for pre-Puja repairs.
“We will place paver blocks on waterlogging-prone stretches to make them more durable,” Hakim said.
