The Jinjirabazar crossing and the Budge Budge Trunk Road, used by thousands of people living in the southwestern outskirts of c, are in a miserable state and need urgent repairs, daily commuters said.
Stretches of the roads do not even look like a surface on which vehicles are supposed to move, said a commuter. The roads have converted into very long stretches of broken surfaces. The top bituminous layer is completely absent and the bricks or stones underneath jut out dangerously.
Along several stretches of the Budge Budge Trunk Road, more than half the width of the road is broken and unfit for vehicles or cycles to move over them. All vehicles move along a narrow strip of land which is in a comparatively better condition.
The dust rising from the broken and battered roads, as vehicles move over them, is also a health hazard to commuters, pedestrians and those with shops and homes along the roads. A haze envelops the area because of the dust that keeps rising from the broken roads.
“I was completely shocked to see the condition of the road when I was crossing the stretch on Independence Day. It is in a horrible condition,” said Mudar Patherya, a communications professional. “This is by far the worst road in and around Kolkata. Even roads in Salt Lake are better than this,” he added.
With more than a month of the monsoon still left, the condition of the roads will worsen, feared commuters.
“Any car could break down while travelling on a long stretch of such bad roads. People sitting inside the vehicles will also feel the condition of the road. It is especially bad for elderly people and pregnant women,” said a commuter.
Dulal Das, chairperson of Maheshtala Municipality, said on Sunday that repairs have been taken up. “We are redoing the roads, but it will take some time for the work to be completed,” he said.
A resident told The Telegraph that the authorities keep blaming the large trucks that ply the roads for their poor condition. “This is an industrial zone and large trucks are meant to ply. Why cannot the roads be made sturdy enough to handle this kind of traffic?” asked the man.
Another resident said that when the Jinjirabazar-Batanagar flyover was being built, the road below — the Budge Budge Trunk Road — was supposed to be overhauled. The authorities first built the drains along the two flanks of the road, but the drains started to choke within a few years. “They are now laying underground pipelines along the middle of the road,” he said.
Das said the work to lay the pipelines will take some more time to complete.