The port authorities will repair all potholes on the 33 roads maintained by them in the next three or four days, an official of Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) said on Monday, two days after a fatal accident on one of the thoroughfares — Dock East Boundary Road.
“A thorough repair will start in a month. All the roads will be concretised or rebuilt with paver blocks so they do not break easily,” the official said.
Ram Kinkar Ram, son of Ram Pyare Ram, councillor of Ward 79 and a mayoral council member in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), was driving home through the crater-riddled Dock East Boundary Road, in the port area, on Saturday evening when a truck loaded with fertilisers toppled and fell on the car.
The 34-year old died. The road last underwent a thorough repair in 2018.
It was dug up a year ago to lay water pipelines but has not been repaired since, a KoPT official said on Sunday.
Residents of the locality said the truck might have lost balance and toppled while the driver was trying to steer the vehicle clear of deep craters.
Residents and others who travel through the port area frequently said most of the roads there were full of craters.
There is always a risk of trucks toppling on the cratered roads.
On Monday, the port authorities suspended a junior engineer and showcaused a senior executive engineer and an executive engineer who were responsible for the maintenance of Dock East Boundary Road.
“The KoPT will repair all potholes found on the roads maintained by us within three or four days. The chairperson has instructed the engineers to ensure that potholes are filled at the earliest,” said an official.
“It was also decided today that roads under the custody of the KoPT will be concretised or rebuilt with paver blocks of very high strength so that they do not break easily. The paver blocks used to lay roads inside the docks will be used to rebuild the roads in the port area.”
The KoPT has already started rebuilding Hyde Road with such paver blocks, the official said.
Among the other roads in the KoPT custody are Hoboken Road and Transport Depot Road.