A sum of Rs 10 lakh has been allocated for each of the 41 wards of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation for road repairs, deputy mayor Anita Mondal said.
However, no schedule has been drawn up for the release of the funds and civic sources said it would be a long-drawn process because the allocation would have to be cleared by the state finance department.
A senior official in the corporation’s road repairs department said the funds had to be sought from the state government. “A proposal has to be sent along with a request to release the funds for carrying out urgent road repairs in all 41 wards under the civic body,” the official said.
“We will carry out a study and prepare a detailed project report, based on which we will ask the state government for funds,” said Mondal, who is also the mayoral council member in charge of road repairs in the civic body.
She, however, stressed that only patchwork repairs would be carried out with the funds.
The corporation is responsible for road repairs in Salt Lake, parts of Rajarhat, Baguiati, Chinar Park and Kestopur, among other places.
The Telegraph has reported on multiple occasions about the dismal state of roads in places looked after by the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation.
Many roads in Salt Lake — arterial roads as well as lanes — are in bad shape. Sources in the corporation said the roads in the showpiece township had not been relaid in the last eight years. “All we have done is patchwork repairs,” a civic official said.
Patchwork repairs wear out fast. A number of stretches where such superficial repairs were carried out before the Kolkata International Book Fair, which started on January 31, have returned to their earlier state.
On some stretches, the entire blacktop has crumbled, leaving the bricks, stone chips and sand exposed. Vehicles tend to skid while passing over such stretches. Also, every time a vehicle passes, there is the danger of brick pieces flying out like projectiles.
A senior official in the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation said the only solution was to scrape off the asphalt layer on all roads in the township and relay them.
