The blanket of hoardings across the city has blocked traffic signals, shut off bus stops and eaten away precious space on narrow streets.
As the Puja draws closer, the structures are posing difficulties to commuters and pedestrians.
On Southern Avenue, a number of bamboo structures with lights have been erected across the road. A police officer said such structures were not allowed to come up across a road where buses ply.
The gigantic hoardings near Acropolis Mall have masked the traffic lights. A series of hoardings have been erected across Chakraborty Para Road, which runs along the western boundary of Acropolis Mall.
With the traffic lights hidden behind hoardings, many drivers on Monday looked baffled as they failed to figure out when the signal was turning green. A police constable had to run from one side of the road to another and wave at waiting cars and buses to move.
“This is really dangerous. How would one understand when the signal turns red or green? This can lead to an accident,” said a Kasba resident who drove through the stretch on Monday morning.
A police constable said they had to manually run the signal for the past two days.
Debashis Kumar, mayoral council member in charge of the advertisement department of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), said there was a clear instruction that no traffic signal should be blocked by hoardings.
“This should not be done. I will speak with the police so that the hoardings are removed,” said Kumar.
A police officer said they were trying to remove the hoardings or get their height reduced so that the signal becomes visible to drivers.
On Southern Avenue, nearly 10 bamboo gates with decorative lights have been erected across the road. The organisers of a Durga Puja said they were told at a recent Puja coordination meeting, which was addressed by senior representatives of Calcutta police and the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, that structures should not be erected across a road where buses ply.
An officer of the traffic police department admitted that such structures across roads were not allowed. The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was unlikely that the structures would be removed this year.
The bamboo frames on which billboards are being hung shut off two bus shelters outside Deshapriya Park on Rashbehari Avenue. When Metro visited the place on Monday afternoon, banners were being put up on the frames.
“I will look into this, too. Bus shelters cannot be blocked in any way,” said Kumar.
This newspaper had earlier reported how gigantic hoardings blocking the buildings behind them and cutting off street lights and traffic surveillance cameras have sprung up across the city ahead of Durga Puja.
Some of the hoardings are as tall as three-storey buildings and they rise from barely two feet above the kerb, making the pavements invisible from the road.
Across the city, the billboards have also eaten up road space. On VIP Road, which leads to the airport, hoardings have been erected in such a way on both flanks that they stick out by at least two feet onto the main carriageway of the road.
The frame of the billboards is made of plywood. On Monday, this newspaper spotted many cars and two-wheelers swerving and veering away from them at the last minute to prevent crashing into them. This increases chances of accidents as those veering away from the billboards get right onto the path of other vehicles.
Additional reporting by Snehal Sengupta