Stretches of some of the city’s busiest thoroughfares are inadequately illuminated, the city police have found.

The police have written to the PWD seeking that the yellow sodium vapour lamps be replaced with LED lights along Red Road, Dufferin Road, Kidderpore Road and Mayo Road.

Calcutta’s Maidan area witnesses dense fog during the night and early mornings when winter sets in, and senior police officers said the reduced visibility poses a serious challenge to motorists.

Inadequate illumination of some thoroughfares around Maidan has resulted in several fatal accidents, and conditions are expected to worsen over the next few months, a senior officer said.

“In September, a cyclist was fatally hit on Casuarina Avenue at night because the driver of the car couldn’t spot him from a distance,” the officer said.

“The yellow sodium vapour lights aren’t enough to illuminate stretches because the light doesn’t reach the ground. We have sought their replacement at the earliest,” he said.

Motorists who drive down some of these thoroughfares around Maidan at night
have only the headlights to rely on to spot an object or a pedestrian.

Several of them said that Dufferin Road, which connects Mayo Road with Outram Road, is lined with trees, and some clubs have their tents located on one side. At night, when the clubs shut down, the shaded stretch becomes difficult to navigate through mist and fog.

According to senior police officers, the turn towards Kidderpore Road from the junction of Red Road and Casuarina Avenue also becomes critical at night.

Mayo Road

Vehicles move at a high speed on this stretch. Since the spot is poorly illuminated, motorists often find it difficult to negotiate the turn towards Kidderpore Road, a traffic police officer said.

“Recently, we have installed additional lights at the intersection of Red Road with Outram Road because people often wait here to take a bus. But that is just about one particular spot, not the entire area,” the officer said.

Motorists driving through some of these roads in the evening complained about how dark the thoroughfares become.

“The light from the lamp posts on Outram Road is inadequate. The lamp posts on the divider along Kidderpore Road do not illuminate a major part of the thoroughfare. On Casuarina Avenue, there were several dark patches with no trace of illumination,” said Abhijit Roy, a private bank employee who drives to and from his office.

In September, the concern regarding inadequate illumination arose during a district road safety committee meeting at the Kolkata Police headquarters in Lalbazar.

Rupesh Kumar, joint commissioner of police (traffic), had asked engineers of the PWD to change the existing illumination to white LED on all roads in the Maidan area.

Senior officials of the PWD’s electrical wing in the Maidan area said the work will be taken up soon.

“The festive season came in the way of starting the work. Hopefully, the work will begin soon,” a senior PWD official said.