Mayor to monitor repair work for Puja-ready roads

Kolkata: Mayor Firhad Hakim will spend the entire night on September 25 moving around the city to monitor road conditions and ensure that all roads are spruced up before the Mahalaya. The Mayor had earlier assured that all roads that have developed potholes or have been damaged due to rainfall will be repaired before the Mahalaya scheduled on September 28.

The KMC has made a list of 128 roads that have been damaged due to the ongoing monsoon and work for repairing these roads has been taken up on warfooting.

"The roads are being repaired and majority of the stretches has already been mended. We assure the Kolkatans that they will face no difficulty due to bad road conditions during the Durga Puja. I will monitor the progress of work throughout the night on September 25," said Mayor Firhad Hakim in response to a query on roads by Leader of Left Front Ratna Roy Majumder at the monthly meeting on Thursday.

"It makes no sense to undertake thorough repair of roads at this juncture with the monsoon in full swing. Rain water is the greatest enemy of bitumen that is used for making roads, so the exercise of thorough repair now will be an exercise in futility. There will be patch work before the Pujas and after the rainy season gets over we will take up sprucing up of the roads," said Ratan Dey, Member, Mayor-in-Council (Roads), KMC.

Major roads in Central Kolkata that are being repaired are parts of MG Road, Strand Road, Central Avenue , S.N. Banerjee Road, Lenin Sarani and APC Road.

Behala in southern fringes of the city is one of the major contributors to the list of battered roads with several areas of Diamond Harbour Road, James Long Sarani and Bakrahat Road requiring urgent repair.

Parts of NSC Bose Road in Garia-Naktala area have become rough and have developed big potholes and are posing a risk to vehicle movement is also undergoing renovation.

Roads located in posh areas in south Kolkata such as Gariahat and Alipore have also figured in the list along with a good number in the eastern part of the city such as Ultadanga, Maniktala, Narkeldanga and Tangra.

The number of bad roads in North Kolkata needing repair is comparatively less and most of them have already been repaired. Stretches in and around EM Bypass and the Bypass Road itself which comes under the maintenance of Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) is also undergoing repair.