A slew of facilities and services was inaugurated by fire and emergency services minister Sujit Bose, the MLA of Bidhannagar, mayor Krishna Chakraborty and other officials of the civic body on August 14. But the opposition claims these are old and revamped projects.
Among the newly-renovated facilities is BD Market that the civic officials claimed had undergone a thorough makeover.

According to mayor Chakraborty, the market’s toilet has been rebuilt, the floor relaid and a new shed for fish and vegetable sellers has been constructed.

But renovation of the market in reality is far from over. According to official sources, what was inaugurated was work done in just the second phase of work. “Since shifting the shops is a problem, work has been going on for years. This phase started in 2018. The first phase had been approved by the previous civic board. The third phase of repair and renovation is currently under way,” said a civic official.

A visit to the market on Sunday, the day after the inauguration, indeed revealed what can at best be described as work in progress.

The walls of the gate at the back have received a fresh coat Telegraph picture

A board in front of a series of temporary stalls under a tin shed read that the shed has been set up as the market was being revamped.

Plastic sheets made for the roof of several open areas and such sheets were seen on top of the market as well.

“The roof leaks. The repairs for this place is taking forever,” said Bikas Saha, who owns a shop in BD Market.

What had been achieved was at the back of the market — two toilets, one for the shopkeepers and another pay-and-use one for visitors.

About a dozen stationery goods and grocery shops had also been repaired.

Questioned about the current state and the need to “inaugurate” a market where work is yet to be completed, Chakraborty said that work would complete soon and majority of the renovation work had been completed.

In addition to this, waste segregation at source for 10 wards of Salt Lake was also inaugurated.

A sitting area that was refurbished and inaugurated Telegraph picture

According to Chakraborty, separate bins for biodegradable and non-biodegradable household waste items have been despatched to houses in these wards.

“We are encouraging people to segregate their household waste before handing them over to the door-to-door waste collectors. The response has been quite good,” said Chakraborty.

Saheli Gupta, a homemaker in ED Block, said that although she had been segregating the waste at home and using the two bins, most collectors were dumping the separate packets into the same van.

“Most of the collectors who come don’t have separate bins and are dumping the waste into a single one in their vans,” said .
Chakraborty said that once the bin distribution was complete they would focus on handing out larger bins to waste collectors.

“We have distributed around 1,000 large bins to our door-to-door conservancy teams. We will distribute more in the coming months,” Chakraborty said.

Another service that was “inaugurated” is the online issue of birth and death certificates. This facility too existed but the mayor pointed out that they had streamlined the process and made it more user-friendly.

A former councillor of the civic body said that it was disheartening to see that the corporation was digging up old existing projects, branding them as new and inaugurating them.

Former mayor Sabyasachi Dutta who is now a BJP secretary, said that it exposed the fact that the corporation had not carried out any new developmental projects.

“All these are old wine in new bottles. It is sad that old projects are being passed off as new and inaugurated. The residents will see through this,” said Dutta.