The first board of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation completed a year in October. The Telegraph Salt Lake draws up a report card on its performance in the township.

¤ROADS
Overall the condition of roads is the same as it was a year back — craters formed during the rains and were given patchwork repairs before the Pujas. As of now, roads in front of Bikash Bhavan, Indira Bhavan, EE Block’s Matri Sadan, Salt Lake gate number 1 near PNB Island all bear signs of shoddy repairs. 

“The corporation only did patchwork before the Pujas. The road from Tank 10 till Tank 12 was in a very bad state before that. Now things are better but I doubt how long they’ll last,” said Maitreyee Chatterjee, a school teacher who stays in GC Block.

Subhojit Majumdar, a Labony resident, said the road leading to EM Bypass through Duttabad, has huge ditches and craters. “That stretch has been in this state for donkey’s years. I can’t recall the last time it was fixed,” said Majumdar.

Corporation speak: Tapas Chatterjee, the deputy mayor who holds the roads portfolio, says all roads have been repaired before the Pujas. “We ensured that all major thoroughfares had been repaired,” Chatterjee said.

¤HEALTH
The dreaded dengue overshadowed all else in this department. The mosquito-borne disease started spreading from June and civic sources say more than 2,500 Salt Lake residents have tested positive so far. The lowest point, of course, was when two primary school students of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan died from dengue. 

Sources blame the menace on the stagnant canals bordering Salt Lake. “Previously fresh water from the Hooghly would be released into Kestopur Canal and Eastern Drainage Canal but it wasn’t done this year. Only a motorboat was run and some larvaecide sprayed in the water near Baisakhi but that wasn’t enough. The stagnant water bred mosquitoes,” said a civic official. 

Another source said that the vector-control team was understaffed. “The corporation has 41 wards and only 150 people in its vector-control team. Even they are mostly deployed in Rajarhat-Gopalpur and Mahisbathan gram panchayat areas, leaving Salt Lake residents to fend for themselves.”

Abhishek Bera, an AE Block resident, and Sharmistha Das of ED Block both said they had rarely seen municipal workers in their areas. “Let alone fogging a region, no one has even sprinkled bleaching powder around my house,” Das said.

The other problem dogging the corporation is Matri Sadan, in EE Block. The hospital, that had started an outdoor unit in 2005, had shut down for renovation in mid-2014. It was officially reopened in January 2015 but things never really took off. There are new beds and equipment now but a dearth of doctors and nursing staff means patients don’t come. The indoor unit is shut since 2012 and the outdoor patient department is struggling with very few doctors.  

Corporation speak: “Our vector control teams are trying their best. Fumigation is on and larvaecide is being sprayed regularly,” said Pranay Ray, the mayoral council member in charge of health. He also claimed to have a dengue testing facility at Matri Sadan but a visit to the hospital last week revealed a sorry state of affairs. It was learnt that there was a single technician available for dengue tests and he, too, had not reported for work till afternoon that day.

¤PARKS, LIGHTS AND BEAUTIFICATION 
A plan had been floated to change the streetlights of the township into LED lights but with the state deciding to stay out of the Smart City race the plan was dropped. Currently the illumination is a mix of sodium vapour and halogen lights. 

“Chances of shifting to LED streetlights are slim now. Moreover, high-mast lights had been installed just before the polls.
Changing them all over again would be difficult and expensive,” said an engineer of the electrical department of the corporation.

Meanwhile, residents bear the brunt. “The streetlights often fail to function. The other day it was pitch dark from the Anindita Island to GD Island,” said Abhijit Chakraborty, a resident of GD Block.

Several parks had been beautified by the previous board and the most significant recent change is the jungle-like installations of trees and animals outside the City Centre petrol pump. “It’s pleasing to the eyes,” said Reshmi Agarwal, a CD Block resident. “I like the blue and white LED lights intertwined on poles,” she said.

But a retired electrical engineer of HA Block had a problem with these. “A boy was electrocuted on touching such a trident lamp with LEDs wrapped around them in Bhowanipore this August. These poles have their junction boxes open so the LEDs can draw power and that’s dangerous” said the resident, asking not to be named.  

As for parks, an IA block resident said parks in his neighbourhood were overgrown for the greater part of the year.
“Repeated complaints to the councillors had fallen on deaf ears. They finally gave the grass a trim before the Pujas,” he said, also seeking anonymity.

Corporation speak: Sudhir Saha, the mayoral council member in charge of lights, parks and gardens, said that he had instructed workers to wrap the junction boxes with adhesive tape. “What can we do if they run out of tape every now and then?” he asked.

Saha blamed the huge number of parks in the township for their lack of upkeep. “You must understand that Salt Lake has a large number of parks. My men are having a hard time as now we have to look after parks in Rajarhat, Baguiati and parts of the airport area too,” said Saha.  

¤GARBAGE DISPOSAL
The corporation introduced two mobile compactor units that compress the volume of garbage before sending them off to the Mollar Bheri dumpyard behind Sector V. They had also planned a waste segregation project, where residents would be asked to handover segregated waste to garbage collectors in separated bags for organic, inorganic, construction waste etc.
Devashis Jana, the mayoral council member in charge of solid waste management, had said it would take off by the Pujas but that has not happened. 

Residents say their lanes are significantly dirtier. “We see piles of garbage lying about. The area in front of the Metro car shed near City Centre is very dirty,” said Sandeep Agarwal, a resident of HB Block. The stretches near the Ramkrishna Island, under the East West Metro corridor opposite DD Ten hospital and near Baisakhi are often found littered too. 

Corporation speak: Jana said they were building compactor sheds near Central Park where bigger compactors could be accommodated. “The civil work has started. It should be completed by middle of next year,” Jana said. “We shall also look into the garbage segregation project.”

As for the lack of cleaning up, a councillor, without being named, said the cleaning staff strength had been dwindling. “Earlier, we had a large number of civic workers allowed to clean up each ward. The number has come down drastically this year,” he said. 

¤EDUCATION 
There are around 10 schools that are run by the civic body across the corporation area and in Salt Lake there are three — Bidhannagar Municipal School in FE Block, Bhagabati Debi Balika Bidyalay in AE Block and Begum Rokeya Smriti Balika Vidyalaya in CJ Block. 

At the FE Block school this year, there was a backlog of salaries that took months to be cleared. “The salaries have been cleared now but the school’s administrative board has been made defunct,” said a civic source. 

People in the know said that the earlier board was dissolved as some members there were close to a chairman-in-council member who was in power in the last board.

Corporation speak: Rajesh Chirimar, the mayor in council member in charge of education, said that several new toilets had been built in corporation schools in Rajarhat. “The quality of their mid-day meals has improved too. We have tied up with Iskcon to deliver quality meals to the students. Apart from this we have given many sports equipment to the schools,” he said.

¤SPORTS AND ENVIRONMENT
The two swimming pools run by the civic body have had a poor run over the past 12 months. Swimmers at the Bidhannagar Sports Complex pool complained of skin rashes and eye infections because of poor water quality and the CJ Block pool had to be shut down following a property dispute.

Corporation speak: Prasenjit Sardar, who heads the sports portfolio, says they plan to renovate both the pools, although he couldn’t throw light on the legal tussle the CJ Block pool I embroiled in. “We shall upgrade the filtration units, change the tiles at their base, fix extra lights and landscape the area around the two pools,” he said. “Since the one in the Bidhannagar Municipal Sports Complex is of international standard we shall build a viewing gallery around it.” 

Jana said that a new sports hostel would be constructed too. “We have many players training at our sports complex opposite Bikash Bhavan. We shall build a hostel for them soon. MLA Sujit Bose has already promised funds for it,” Jana said.

Rahima Bibi, the mayoral council member in charge of environment, said: “The environment of Salt Lake and Rajarhat has improved greatly.” When asked how, she could not give a satisfactory explanation.

 

How would you rate the the Corporation’s first year performance?
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