Arterial roads and streets across all three sectors of Salt Lake that are riddled with giant potholes and dysfunctional street lights have turned several stretches into potential death traps for motorists and pedestrians.
Even though there has been less rainfall this year till now compared to the usual monsoon quota, the roads across Salt Lake are still battered and bruised.
Additionally, every main road, even the lanes inside the blocks, is plunged into darkness after sundown because of the non-functional street lights in several places.
One of the worst affected stretches in terms of potholes and non-working street lights is Eastern Drainage Canal Road which links Salt Lake with EM Bypass at the Chingrighata crossing.
Lamp posts are installed at a gap of 20 to 25m on all main roads as well as in lanes in the 52 blocks in all three sectors of the township.
On Eastern Drainage Canal Road too, the placement of streetlights follows this plan, however, on the entire 6km only a handful work properly.
In addition to this, potholes and construction materials dumped on both sides of the road make driving down or walking an extremely risky affair.
Apart from this stretch, the road that leads to Calcutta University’s Salt Lake campus from AMRI Hospitals Salt Lake does not have a single functioning streetlight for the entire stretch of 500m.
The road from the university campus to Canal Bank Road is in a similar state.
Parts of Broadway, an arterial road that cuts across the township and connects it with EM Bypass, have long stretches where lights are missing.
A 200m long stretch of road in front of the Salt Lake stadium resembles a Martian landscape. Craters span the entire EM Bypass and Salt Lakebound flanks of this road.
Several residents told this newspaper that they were scared of walking or driving through these stretches at night because they could fall prey to snatchers and other petty criminals because of the darkness.
“As it is our cars are taking a beating because of the sad state of roads and now we are having to deal with dysfunctional lights also,” said Kalyan Agarwal, a resident of IA Block.
An official of the civic body’s road repairs department said that they had already finished a survey identifying the bad stretches of the roads and that repairs would start soon.
The corporation is also responsible for the maintenance of the lighting systems and the lamp posts. The cables are maintained by the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL), which supplies power.
A WBSEDCL official said the supply lines to the street lights were fine as they had conducted a check recently.
