Bamboo scaffolding doubling as gates that were set up before Durga Puja in Salt Lake, New Town and on VIP Road have not been dismantled yet.
These structures that stretch across the width of the roads had been erected by sinking bamboo poles into the asphalt. They have reduced the road space and many have hoardings and wooden poles hanging precariously from them over the thoroughfares.
The Telegraph drove through VIP Road, Salt Lake and New Town on Saturday and found that nearly every approach to a Durga Puja pandal had such gates and hoardings that jutted out dangerously.
On VIP Road, both flanks are lined with giant scaffolding displaying banners and hoardings between Dum Dum Park and the base of the EM Bypass-VIP Road flyover.
On the approach to the pandal of Sreebhumi Sporting Club, bamboo structures about 20ft tall and 5ft-wide had been erected for putting up hoardings and banners.
Most of these structures jut out into the service lane of VIP Road.
In New Town, the road behind the New Town bus stand that leads to Central Square, where the pandal of GLS New Town Sarbojonin Durga Puja had come up, has multiple scaffolding gates.
Ahead of the festival, many people did not mind the shrinking of the road space. Now they are complaining.
On Saturday, several such gates were dismantled, but the bamboo poles and plywood skeletons of the banners were strewn across the road haphazardly.
Salt Lake was no different.
One of the gates right next to the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC) in the township has eaten up nearly a quarter of the carriageway and is creating a bottleneck.
In all of these areas, this newspaper spotted cars and bikes slow down — or veer away at the last minute — after spotting bamboo poles jutting out into the road from the base of the structures.
Dipanwita Sinha, a techie who rides a scooter to her workplace in Sector V, said she nearly ran into a car while trying to dodge one of these structures on VIP Road.
“After getting on VIP Road, I generally take the service lane and the Bailey bridge near the Lake Town crossing to enter Salt Lake. Yesterday, a car nearly hit me as I swerved at the last minute to avoid ramming into one of these huge bamboo structures that are right on the service lane,” said the resident of Dum Dum Park.
A senior official of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority said they have asked those who set up the hoardings, gates and banners to remove them “on an urgent basis”.
“They have started dismantling the structures. All of them will be removed in the next couple of days,” the official said.
Anita Mondal, deputy mayor of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation who is in charge of the roads department, said they, too, have asked the agencies involved in setting up the gates and banners to remove them at the earliest.
