With a pile of sand heaped on the carriageway causing a fatal accident on Monday night, the cry to remove construction materials from New Town roads has got louder. 

Residents have always complained about their roads being blocked by parked trucks and heaps of sand and stone chips. 

A bike carrying three teenagers skidded on the sand and went flying in the middle of the road while the helmetless heads of the teenagers cracked under a heap of bricks that fell off an adjacent stack that they hit on being flung off the bike. The building material had been dumped by the contractor of a standalone structure coming up near Axis Mall in New Town. The accident took place on one of the arterial roads that runs along New Town, off Rajarhat Expressway, near Axis Mall.

Recently the Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) has announced a fine of Rs 50,000 on builders for any construction material that they dump on the roadside. But that does not seem to be working as yet.
With buildings coming up all over the township, construction material lies strewn over the streets, inconveniencing residents and commuters, many of whom say this accident was waiting to happen. 

“I fell off my motorcycle the other day while taking a turn in front of my complex as there was a huge pile of sand dumped on the side of the road,” said Anirban Kundu, a resident of Animikha Housing Complex. 

“The entire street was covered in sand and my bike skidded. We understand that New Town is a developing township so there are constructions going on everywhere. But that does not mean they dump material wherever they please or that the trucks ferrying them get parked in front of our complex, blocking roads.”

Other roads, such as that behind the electricity office near NBCC Vibgyor Tower, are out of bounds too thanks to sand, stone chips and construction material strewn all over.

Hidco officials say they are planning to earmark an area in front of every construction site and routine checks will be made to ensure that none of the material spills out. “If we find sand, stone chips, electric cables etc piled up and blocking the road, the builder will be fined,” said Hidco chairman cum managing director Debashis Sen. 

Truckload of problems 

Shankar Mukherjee moved into New Town’s Sanjeeva Town Duplex four years ago and to date he hasn’t seen two-way traffic on the two-way road in front of his complex. The road in question is metalled and in great condition but one flank has been shut. “That road is our lifeline. We have to take it to go to office, school and market but with one flank always blocked by trucks, negotiating the traffic gets extremely risky.”

Rajdeep Ray of Greenfield Heights (known locally as 18 tola) faces the same problem. “Since New Town roads are pretty good, cars speed up to 60 or 70kph but suddenly they see this flank before our complex blocked and cannot brake in time. There was a time when this stretch would witness seven accidents in seven days,” says Ray. “We regulars have learnt to slow down there now but newcomers get a rude shock.”

The 500m flank in question lies between the Bharat Petroleum petrol pump on Street Number 326 and Rabi Rashmi housing complex in Action Area 1. It is blocked because trucks are parked there round the clock. One recent Sunday, The Telegraph Salt Lake found six such trucks parked, making it impossible for any other vehicle to drive through. The stretch behind the Swapno Bhor senior citizen’s park had trucks and buses parked all day too.

Residents say they have complained to the authorities several times but in vain. Hidco officials said they do not want to get involved in the matter as trucks and buses come under the purview of traffic police. 

The police claim they take strict action whenever they are alerted about trucks blocking the roads. “If residents complain to us we take prompt action and ask the trucks to clear the road,” Shankar Choudhury had told The Telegraph Salt Lake when he was still the inspector in charge of New Town police station. But insiders say they go soft on the trucks as they supply material to syndicates that are controlled by political leaders.

The truck drivers, in turn, say they are hassled by police. “We pay the cops regularly to keep our trucks here,” said Dilip Mondal, who had parked his truck on Street Number 326. “We have been parking here for the last six years. We supply materials to syndicates in New Town and use this stretch as a garage. There is a tap here for us to wash our trucks, tyre shops and tea stalls, so it suits us.”

A private bus driver, who had parked near the AD Block football ground next to Tank 1, had a similar story to share. “We have been parking here for 10 years. Our buses ferry IT sector employees to their offices in New Town and Salt Lake. I know our buses block the road but nobody has asked us to move out. We pay the police every month so they don’t harass us,” said the driver. There were five more buses from the same transport company parked on that road.