Kolkata: The breather from rains since Wednesday afternoon has made the Roads department of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) pull up its socks and carry out road repair on a war footing in different parts of the city.
According to a senior official in the Roads department of the civic body, DL Khan Road, Judges Court Road, New Road (near Uttirna) and a number of thoroughfares in and around Alipore area have been repaired since Wednesday evening. “From Thursday night, we will take up stretches of EM Bypass in front of Highland Park, Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan (erstwhile Milan Mela), Gurusuday Road, Ballygunge Circular Road in South Kolkata while Beadon Street, Barobourne road in north will be rejuvenated.
We have taken up road repair for the last few days, but incessant rainfall for the last three or four days prevented us from gaining momentum. Now with the dry spell, the pace has picked up,” the official added. Potholes and craters have developed in a number of roads in the city. The Kolkata Traffic Police has provided the KMC a list of roads that need to be repaired on priority basis ahead of the Martyr’s Day rally of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on July 21. The roads from where people will come in procession for conserving infront of CESC, the venue for the programme are in this list.
“Presently, the roads that we have taken up for repair are based on the list provided by the Police,” said a KMC official.
Hot mix is being used for repair and already a number of important roads in central Kolkata and north Kolkata have been spruced up that includes SN Banerjee Road, Hemanta Basu Sarani, Nirmal Chandra Dey Street to name a few.
Some of the important roads to be repaired include MG Road, Chittaranjan Avenue, Amherst Street and BB Ganguly Street for which work will be taken up soon.