EM Bypass, which has so long been maintained by the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), will now be maintained by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), mayor Firhad Hakim said on Friday.
Hakim said all services, including maintaining street lights, road surface and drainage would be provided by the KMC.
An official of the civic body said solid waste disposal along the Bypass and the service roads would also be the KMC’s responsibility.
“EM Bypass will remain in the custody of the KMC the same way as Chowringee Road,” Hakim said while trying to explain the change.
“The KMC will henceforth maintain EM Bypass.”
The order on the hand over of the maintenance of the Bypass to the KMC will be issued next week, a state government official said.
Another state government official told The Telegraph that the maintenance of bridges and flyovers over the Bypass, as well as culverts over canals, will remain the responsibility of the KMDA, which functions under the state urban development department.
A portion of the Parama flyover and the Ultadanga flyover are among the structures that run above the Bypass.
“The KMC doesn’t have the expertise to maintain elevated structures like bridges and flyovers, and also culverts. So the custody of these structures will remain with the KMDA,” the state government official said.
The reason behind the change is the fact that the KMC owns two plants where road repair materials are made. It is easier for the KMC to prepare the volume of materials needed and fill any crater or pothole on the Bypass. The KMDA does not own any such plant, and has to depend on contractors who are hired through a lengthy process.
“Even for repairing a small pothole, the KMDA has to float a tender and wait,” Hakim said.
The state government official said the idea behind the formation of development authorities such as the KMDA was that they would create assets and hand them to urban local bodies for maintenance. In the case of the Bypass, that did not happen for many years.
Ever since the Bypass was built in the 1980s, its custody remained with the KMDA.
Initially, only the stretch between Ultadanga and Beleghata had been built. As the city expanded in the south, the EM Bypass, too, grew southwards.
It is now a 16-km corridor between Ultadanga in the north and Dhalai bridge in the south.
Different agencies having custody of different roads in the same city makes working difficult. While roads that branch off from the Bypass are maintained by the KMC, the Bypass had remained with the KMDA.
The areas on both sides of EM Bypass are represented by councillors of the KMC.
Whenever they came across any issue or received complaints from residents of their wards, they first call up engineers and officials of the KMC.
“We tell the councillors that we will forward the complaint to the KMDA and doing that wastes some time,” said a KMC official.