Pending work to lay sewer lines under the Kolkata Environmental Improvement Investment Programme (KEIIP) must be completed by July, along with restoration of roads that were dug up to lay the pipes, mayor Firhad Hakim said recently.

Sources in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said that Hakim told engineers during internal meetings that no road should remain dug up during the peak of monsoon. He set engineers a deadline of July 31 to restore all roads dug up to lay sewer lines.

Though monsoon usually arrives in Bengal around June 10, a KMC official said they convinced the mayor to give them time till July to restore the roads. “Given the volume of the pending work, it is impossible to wind up everything before July,” said the official.

Hakim reiterated the deadline at the weekly phone-in programme Talk to Mayor, after a woman complained that Motilal Gupta Road in Behala has remained dug up for months. The KEIIP has not provided sewer connections there. Every monsoon, residents have to wade through the waterlogged street because of the incomplete project.

“Ensure that all pending work is over by July 31. Both of you have promised me that pending work will be completed by July 31,” Hakim said, pointing towards the chief engineers of KEIIP and KMC’s roads department.

When one of them told the mayor that Motilal Gupta Road’s problem would take longer to fix, Hakim reminded them that they had told him all pending work would be done by the end of July.

A KMC official said the pending works include completion of two drainage pumping stations, one at Garia’s Renia and the other on MG Road, which connects Tollygunge and Thakurpukur. “The inlet and outlet pipes have yet to be installed. The pumping stations have to be completed,” said the official.

“Laying sewer lines on a long stretch of Bakrahat Road is still incomplete. This underground sewer line will come and join the sewer line under Diamond Harbour Road, from where the sewage will go to the drainage pumping station in Joka,” said the official.

“Besides, work is pending along small stretches in several places in Behala, Thakurpukur and Garia. Nearly 5km long sewer lines are yet to be laid,” said the official.

Some of the wards where KEIIP work is still pending include wards 124, 125 and 126 in the Thakupukur-Bakrahat area, wards 142, 143 and 144 in Joka, and wards 111, 112 and 113 in and around Garia.

“The contractor who won the bid did not work properly. We have now hired a new contractor to complete the work,” said an official.

The KEIIP’s project started in 2017-18 and was supposed to be over by 2022-23. “Most of these places did not have a proper drainage network. The KEIIP was meant to create new and efficient drainage infrastructure,” said an official.