The stretch from IA Market till Anindita More has been broken since as long as one can remember but it has perhaps never been as bad as it is now. Finally, there is hope of repair.
In his effort to keep civic services running in the township in the absence of councillors, local MLA cum minister Sharadwat Mukherjee met civic commissioner Ravi Agarwal on Tuesday. “Roads are in terrible shape. I handed over a list of four-five stretches that need urgent attention. A flank of a road near IA Market has turned into a garbage dump. The commissioner has promised to start work in 10 days,” he said.
Local residents will believe the promise when they see action on the ground. “We are tired of complaining about this road. Sujit Bose had promised to repair it and got it broken, claiming it was the first step towards repairing it. They deferred the project till after elections, leaving it worse than before,” said Niloy Ghosh, who lives in a first floor house opposite the stretch, in HA Block, and runs the F&B Cafe on the ground floor. “Previously, at least cycles could ply on that road but now even they would get disbalanced and fall.”
The entire flank is now blocked. The ground has loose stones, the roadsides have hillocks of stone chips and bricks, and the space is a haven for hawkers and cars looking for free parking space. People have even hung up laundry on the road divider to dry.
The stretch begins at Tank 13 and includes a vat, which is a pain for sanitation workers to reach. “It is tedious pushing our carts over such rough surfaces,” said a garbage man, asking not to be named. “Moreover, because residents have realised that this stretch is closed to traffic, they come and dump their trash here, increasing our workload.”
With one flank now out of bounds, the other side is bearing two-way traffic. Locals said at least three minor accidents have taken place here recently.
“We will believe it when we see it,” said a local resident, when informed about the plans for imminent repair.
Additional reporting by Sudeshna banerjee
