Police have written to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to repair stretches of Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, SN Banerjee Road, Free School Street and AJC Bose Road after officers from the respective traffic guards flagged their concern about the state of these thoroughfares among several other broken and battered roads.
“A large part of Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road needs repair and so do certain stretches of other roads, including a portion of AJC Bose Road near its junction with Camac Street,” said a senior police officer.
“We have urged the civic engineers to repair these accident-prone roads as early as possible because of the heavy volume of traffic that they attract every day.”
While some of these thoroughfares have developed potholes a few others have
witnessed an erosion of the top bituminous surface following waterlogging, police said.
Movement of traffic during peak hours was getting hit making it imperative to
get these stretches repaired as soon as possible, they added.
A section of KMC engineers said these roads were among several others that had witnessed heavy waterlogging last week following heavy downpours.
Parts of Camac Street, Shakespeare Sarani and Chowringhee Road were waterlogged last Thursday when it rained 79mm between 1pm and 4pm.
With less than a month and a half to Durga Puja — Sashthi is slated on October 20 — police headquarters in Lalbazar had sought a report on the condition of the roads under their respective jurisdictions from the officers in charge of the 25 traffic guards in the city.
The officers were asked to identify spots and stretches under their jurisdiction where potholes have surfaced or where the road surface has withered away or caved
in.
“There are tram tracks on Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road which tend to slow down vehicle movement. Coupled with this if the road’s condition remains bad then it makes it even more difficult for motorists to use this arterial thoroughfare,” said a senior officer overseeing traffic in the city’s central region.
“So we have urged KMC engineers to take up the repairs at the earliest.”
Apart from the condition of roads, the officers in charge of the traffic guards were also asked to identify spots with inadequate illumination and draw up a list of places where trimming of trees was required.
“In the Maidan area, for instance, we have received appeals for better illumination of stretches of Outram Road and Dufferin Road. Similar appeals have reached us from other parts of the city but we want these two in particular to be taken up at the earliest,” the police officer said.
A section of KMC engineers said they have been working on restoring and repairing some of the stretches of roads that were in bad condition. The rains, though, have come in the way.
“We have already repaired a long stretch of Southern Avenue after police flagged their concerns. There are a few complaints about SP Mukherjee Road and about a patch of Dhakuria bridge,” said a senior engineer of the KMC’s roads department.
“Wet road surfaces are not quite conducive to repairs with hot bitumen. We will resume our work within a day or two.”
Two suicide bids stall Metro
An alleged suicide bid at Girish Park station disrupted Metro Rail services for around 30 minutes during the office rush on Monday morning.
In the afternoon, another passenger got down on the tracks at Sovabazar station. But the driver of an incoming train braked in time and the man was rescued unhurt within a couple of minutes, said officials.
Suicides and suicide bids have for long plagued the city’s north-south Metro corridor. The East-West Metro has platform screen doors that prevent suicide bids.
On July 11, Metro services were disrupted by a double suicide bid at MG Road station. A man and woman jumped in front of a Dakshineswar-bound train.