Kolkata crawls: Kali Puja pandals and festive shoppers snarl traffic across city
Times of India | 30 October 2024
KOLKATA: Vehicles moved slower in several pockets of the city throughout Wednesday, a day before Kali Puja, due to pandals encroaching on roads and the closure of key roads like Amherst Street, SN Banerjee Road, Raja Rammohan Sarani, Beliaghata Road, Monoharpukur Road and Hazra Road.
Large-scale diversions of buses from BB Ganguly Street-MG Road, due to last-minute Diwali shopping, also added to the traffic challenge.
While the traffic blockades were set to begin on Thursday due to the pujas, several organisers were seen setting up dais close to their pandals and blocking off a major portion of the road. Some even went ahead and set up barricades, claiming it was necessary as the pandal hoppers started trickling in.
Cops said that a lot of pressure on the roads on Wednesday was also due to a section of people leaving the city for Diwali and Chhath.
"A large number of central Kolkata residents were headed to railway stations and Babughat to leave the city. They will be back in the city only after Chhath. With a long festive weekend ahead, we are hoping for traffic to normalise from Thursday."
At Beliaghata Main Road, it took close to 50 minutes to reach Sealdah from Building More. "There are at least two pujas that took up significant road space. I wonder how the city police fail to raise any objection to such blatant disregard for laws," claimed Sunanya Chakraborty, who was travelling in her office car from Salt Lake to Chandni Chowk.
Take Hazra Road or Monoharpukur Road as examples. Alongside the bamboo-made pandal structures here, stages for a musical event have been set up. The few feet of road left for vehicles are so narrow that even two buses found it difficult to pass, let alone freight vehicles. In fact, drivers had to practically put one wheel onto the sidewalk to get past the dais at Monoharpukur Road.
However, at both places, the organisers claimed that these constructions were not significantly disrupting traffic. One of the organisers at Monoharpukur Road, Chandan Das, said, "As is the practice every year, we have left space for cars this year as well. There shouldn't be any major inconvenience in commuting."
However, local residents have a different opinion. One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said, "During the day, you can somehow manage to drive in, but at night, it's impossible. Chairs are placed across the road. We have no choice but to leave our cars at a friend's or acquaintance's house."