Several roads in the city are in a battered condition, some of them have a series of potholes.
Pools of water collect in the potholes after rain and hide them from the view of commuters.
Drivers of buses and cars and commuters riding two-wheelers often fail to spot the potholes as they remain under water and the wheels of the vehicles fall into them.
Two-wheelers stand at risk of toppling after falling into the craters.
When the wheels of cars and buses fall into the submerged potholes, the water splashes on people standing close or those sitting in other vehicles.
On Tuesday, The Telegraph spotted a large pothole in the middle of the road at the Kasba end of Bijon Setu in south Kolkata.
Vehicles coming down from the bridge at high speed suddenly find the pothole and slow down to avoid damage. Some drivers try to swerve to the right to avoid the pothole, raising the risk of a collision with the vehicle on the right. Pieces of bricks were used to fill the pothole but those have started to wear out.
A Kasba resident said it becomes more difficult after sundown as the pothole can only be spotted from very close quarters.
A senior KMC official attributed the delay in repairing the road to a leak on a water pipe in Kasba.
“The water supply department will repair the leak. We will restore the road after the leak is fixed,” the official said.
A stretch of EM Bypass in east Kolkata — the one running below the under-construction Metro station at the Ruby crossing — has a series of potholes on the eastern flank.
Vehicles on this stretch suddenly swerve to the right to avoid the pothole-riddled stretch. It becomes a bone-rattling ride for those who continue to ride through the potholes.
An official of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), custodian of the Bypass, said they were undertaking repairs.
“We are filling the potholes on a regular basis,” the official said.
A stretch of Broad Street in Ballygunge, near Repose Nursing Home, has a broken part cutting across the width of the road. A police officer said the stretch was earlier dug up for underground utility repairs.
The KMC had done a temporary restoration with crushed bricks, but new cracks have appeared.
At the Golpark crossing near Gariahat in south Kolkata, a stretch of the road has been scraped off for repairs. Craters have started to appear on the scraped-off stretch.
Avijit Mukherjee, mayoral council member in charge of the roads department, said the civic body was undertaking temporary repairs wherever possible.
“We will repair all roads before Puja. We need to have a dry spell to do the work.”
