Salt Lake’s battered roads get much-needed repairs on Sasthi
Times of India | 10 October 2024
Kolkata: The battered and bruised stretches of Salt Lake, including the township gateway leading to the hospital hub, was finally being repaired on Sasthi, following regular complaints by motorists on social media and on the road.
TOI was at the EM Bypass and Broadway crossing on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon and while the Salt Lake-bound stretch of the road was found scrapped and in a shambles on Tuesday, labourers were busy placing paver blocks as part of patch work repairs on Wednesday.
As a result, one flank of the road was closed and the EM Bypass-bound flank was used for both way traffic between afternoon and late evening as officials promised to finish the work by Wednesday night.
“There was some delay in the start of patch work due to some technical issues but it has been sorted and patch work is now being done at a steady pace. The rains had further slowed down the process but now we are trying to fix all the damaged roads at the earliest,” said a Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) roads department official.
BMC started doing pre-puja patch work from last week to lay fresh bitumen on the most damaged stretches across Salt Lake and Rajarhat Gopalpur. Locals, however said that the pace of work was slow with the majority of places crying for repairs, as only a few stretches have been patched up in the last few days so far.
Bidhannagar traffic police had earlier handed over a list of most damaged stretches to civic authorities urging them to repair the roads at the earliest.
Most of the road stretches, including those near big budget puja pandals like FD block, AE Part 1, AK, BJ and others, remained in bad shape with craters and potholes surfacing even last week. But from the start of this week, even those stretches – especially near the pandals – were patched up on an urgent basis.
Prior to Wednesday, driving along Broadway from EM Bypass had become dangerous especially for motorists and even ambulances.
“We had a tough time negotiating the difference in road depth which could have led to immediate injuries to patients and relatives. But thankfully the authorities have finally started the repair work,” said Anil Das, an ambulance driver who frequents hospitals in Salt Lake.
Car owners in Salt Lake said the rickety roads forced several of them to make do with not-so smooth drives as they waited for the roads to get a fresh coat of bitumen before heading to the workshop for a full-fledged servicing.
“My car is in a very bad state. The undercarriage of the car is damaged. I did a minor repair of the car alignment from a roadside garage. I know if I take it to a workshop, it will cost me nothing less than Rs 20,000. I have been waiting for the roads to get better before I take it to the workshop,” said Samrat Sen, a resident of FE Block.
Shabbir Ahmed, a food delivery agent and Sanjay Mondal, an auto driver of route Karunamoyee-Beleghata main road too had similar complaints. “It’s good to see that the authorities have finally taken up the much needed repair work,” said Ahmed.