KMC spends Rs 30 cr to upgrade roads to mastic top ones

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has spent over Rs 30 crore to upgrade several important roads in the city with mastic asphalt for faster movement of traffic.

The important thoroughfares that have been upgraded with mastic asphalt are Park Circus connector, Gariahat Road South, New park Street and Darga Road. Gurusaday Road has also been repaired while Circular Garden Reach Road, Old Court House Street, Sudhir Bhattacharya Road, Manindra Road and Northern Avenue have been upgraded with mastic.

Senior officers of city police's traffic department said as a result, the average speed of vehicles will go up in these roads. Though initial cost of laying mastic asphalt instead of tar top roads is high but the overall cost is low.

In 2010, when Sovan Chatterjee became the Mayor for the first time, his main thrusts were augmentation of water supply and improvement of the existing roads. Many city rods were widened and it was then decided to upgrade the major roads with mastic asphalt. Mastic top roads were introduced in the city in early 1990s during the Left Front regime. But as the cost of upgradation was high, the scheme was dumped. But after 2015, when Chatterjee was elected Mayor for the second consecutive time, he decided to go ahead with the scheme of upgrading majority of the city roads with mastic asphalt.

After coming to power in 2011, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had stressed upon the need to improve the condition of city roads to increase the average speed of vehicles. She took the initiative and completed Maa flyover. The flyover which was initiated with the funds that were available under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) got stuck midway.

Differences between the contractor and the state government grew and the former stopped the construction work. To make things worse, problems cropped up regarding the design of the flyover. Due to Banerjee's intervention, the problems got resolved and the construction work of the flyover was completed.

The construction of an arm of the flyover connecting it with AJC Bose Road flyover is underway and once completed, the commuters will be able to reach Eastern Metropolitan Bypass from Nabanna in 20 minutes.

There is a proposal to build another flyover connecting EM Bypass with Biswa Bangla Sarani in New Town. Meanwhile, the construction of a flyover to ease out traffic in Budge Budge is on.