The crater-ridden and pothole-filled road network of Salt Lake is likely to worsen with no repairs slated till the run-up to Durga Puja.
Arterial roads as well as streets inside all blocks in all three sectors of the township resemble off-road dirt tracks.
Although this year the rains have been scant and Kolkata has so far registered a rain deficit that is close to 50 per cent it has resulted in worsening the state of roads in Salt Lake.
Several residents told The Telegraph that thorough repairs on any roads have not been conducted in the past eight years.
The Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation has time and again banked on patchwork repairs that have worn out and broken down within a span of a couple of weeks in some places.
A senior official of the BMC said that they were planning to start repairs on the roads in the run-up to the Durga Puja as a stretch of dry days was required for the asphalt mix to set in.
However, this time too, only patchwork repairs will be carried out where the entire road surface is not scraped off but a layer of bitumen that is laid over craters as a quick-fix solution.
"We can only do patchwork repairs before the Pujas as the repairs need to be carried out fast and relaying entire roads will take a lot of time. We will not be able to finish the repairs before the Pujas," said Anita Mondal, the deputy mayor of the Salt Lake civic body who is in charge of road repairs.
An engineer of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) engineer said a road surface laid with mastic asphalt or concrete easily outlasts a surface redone with bitumen.
Mastic asphalt could be laid in a short span of time and even in between rains.
But civic authorities keep choosing patchwork over other options.
Around Rs 4 crore is required to build a kilometre of mastic asphalt road. Though the cost is many times higher than patchwork repairs, it evens out in the long run because mastic asphalt doesn’t require frequent repairs.
An engineer said: “A concrete road is three times costlier to build compared to bitumen but lasts two decades. The longevity of a bitumen stretch, on the other hand, is a few months. A mastic asphalt road costs double and lasts around five years.”
This newspaper has reported on multiple occasions about the sad state of roads in Salt Lake.
The 450m-stretch on Fourth Avenue in front of the Bethune College hostel, Jaideep Mukherjee Tennis Academy and the Bidhannagar Municipal School has potholes and deep craters that have caused accidents and iron manhole covers that jut out from the road at frequent intervals.
The road in front of AE market in Sector I has multiple potholes.
Potholes also dot the road that leads to the IA market near Tank number 13 from Anindita Island near Bancharam's shop in Sector III.
