Bamboo scaffoldings erected on pavements to put up advertisement banners during Durga Puja are yet to be removed from many parts of the city and none in police and the civic body and among the Puja organisers could give a deadline for their removal.
In many places, the scaffoldings have leaned towards the roads and a gust of wind can make them collapse on the carriageways. An officer of the Kolkata police’s traffic department said that if a network of tied bamboos fell, many people would be seriously injured.
The banners fitted on the bamboo scaffoldings have been removed from most pavements, but the scaffoldings still stand above the pavements along Vivekananda Road, Bidhan Sarani, Rashbehari Avenue, Chittaranjan Avenue and Purna Das Road, at the Hazra crossing, and in parts of Topsia, among other places.
The scaffoldings were erected by decorators who supplied materials for the construction of Durga Puja pandals.
The banners are fitted on the scaffoldings by outdoor advertising agencies that pay the Durga Puja committee concerned for the space. There is an understanding between the organisers of two neighbouring Durga pujas on where the space of one ends and that of the other starts, said an organiser.
The secretary of a puja committee in the city said organisers tell the decorators to remove the structures soon after the Puja. “But there is no deadline,” he admitted.
In many places, Kali Puja is held at the same place or close to where a Durga Puja pandal was built. The organisers often tell the decorators to first focus on dismantling the Durga Puja pandal so work on setting up the Kali Puja pandal can start at the earliest.
“It is only after dismantling the Durga Puja pandals that the decorators start taking down the bamboo scaffoldings,” said an organiser of a Durga Puja off Rashbehari Avenue.
Subhankar Sinha Sarkar, joint commissioner (headquarters) of Kolkata police, replied “dekhchi (We are looking into it)” when The Telegraph told him that the bamboo scaffoldings had still not been removed from many places and asked him whether there was any deadline.
Debashis Kumar, mayoral council member in charge of parks and squares of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), said it was unfair to expect the scaffoldings to be removed so fast.
“The festival ended only yesterday (Saturday). The carnival continued till late on Saturday. You cannot expect all scaffoldings to be removed on Sunday morning,” said Kumar, among the organisers of the Tridhara Sammilani puja, which is among the major crowd pullers.
Officials of the KMC, the custodian of Kolkata’s pavements, said they had no control over the temporary advertisements put up during the Puja or the bamboo scaffoldings, which they said are erected without any guidance or government supervision.