Elections come and go. Little changes in between.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is tasked with maintaining roads and street lights, supplying drinking water and providing drainage and health services, among others. The delivery or the lack of these services has an impact on millions of people living or working in Kolkata.
Five days to the civic elections, The Telegraph spoke to Kolkatans in most of the 144 wards of Kolkata Municipal Corporation for a taste of what the city actually wants.
No footpath to walk
In Kolkata, footpaths are there but not for pedestrians. Hawkers have taken over most of them. Promises to keep two-thirds of footpaths for pedestrians were never implemented, neither by the CPM nor by Trinamul.
The KMC has yet to frame a hawker policy.
Hawkers allege that a section of cops, political leaders and civic officials take money from them in return for letting them encroach pavements with their wares.
“One cannot walk from Ballygunge to Hindustan Park without stepping on the road. It is an identical situation in Esplanade and Hatibagan,” said a resident of Ballygunge in south Kolkata.
Electric poles
At least four persons died after touching electric poles or by accidentally coming in contact with uncovered wires in Kolkata in the past few years. That did not stop the practice of keeping wires exposed, even during the monsoon.
A Kolkatan who had been to Alipore in mid-November saw wires hanging out from a pole at the intersection of Belvedere Road and National Library Avenue in southwest Kolkata. On Tuesday, nearly a month later, The Telegraph found that the lid on the wires was still open.
Despite the deaths, no agency was held accountable for failing to secure the life of pedestrians. The power utilities blamed the civic body and vice-versa.
Water supply
Localities in Kasba, Jadavpur and Tollygunge still suffer from acute water crisis. In many other places, water is supplied for less than two hours a day, which proves to be inadequate.
In contrast, water is supplied for nearly 10 hours or more to many parts of central and north Kolkata. Civic engineers have admitted that there is a huge inequality in the supply of water.
Water wastage is very high in Kolkata and there is no effort to plug that.
“There are places where water overflows from the reservoir and goes to waste. The KMC should charge for water supply beyond a volume to reduce wastage. The saved water should be routed to water scarce areas,” said a Jadavpur resident.
Waterlogging
Mukundapur, which has some of the city’s biggest hospitals, is also the city's waterlogging capital. Several parts of Mukundapur, Ward 109, remain waterlogged for days after every spell of heavy rain.
Tania Das, who lives in an apartment opposite AMRI Mukundapur, feels betrayed by the civic authorities. “I pay Rs 8,400 every year to the KMC as tax. But every time it rains, our parking area, the roads all around our building and even the elevator goes under water. A foul smell emanates from accumulated water after two-three days,” she said.
The same problem is faced by residents of 44 wards in Behala, Kasba and Jadavpur.
Civic engineers blame it on clogged canals, which are maintained by the state irrigation department.
Overhead cables
The mesh of overhead cables, omnipresent across the city, belie every claim of beautification. The cables make the city ugly and dirty. They are also a threat to the safety of motorists and pedestrians.
In January 2018, an 18-year-old man riding a motorbike suffered fatal head injuries after his two-wheeler got caught in a heap of cables on the east-bound flank of the Park Circus No. 4 bridge. The man was not wearing a helmet. The bulk of the cables were defunct but were not removed.
“I want the overhead cables to be packed into a bunch and they should not hang close to the road,” said Shaikh Sohail, a Kidderpore resident.
Taking cables underground should be the target, but till that happens the existing cables should not be allowed to hang dangerously.
Better roads
The roads resemble the moon’s surface every monsoon. They are repaired every year but break after rain. Some of Kolkata's busiest roads were in bad shape this monsoon, including SP Mukherjee Road, Harish Mukherjee Road, Diamond Harbour Road, Ultadanga Main Road, AJC Bose Road and Cossipore Road.
The gaping potholes suggested the roads were not built in a manner to withstand the type of rain the city gets, engineers said.
Mosquito
In several areas of the city, people are scared to step out on the road after sundown. Not because of goons but mosquitoes.
A man who lives near the Tolly’s Nullah in Bansdroni on the southern fringes of Kolkata said he had to shut all doors and windows of his house by 4pm in summer and 3pm in winter to prevent his house from being invaded by swarms of mosquitoes.
A resident of Behala in southwest Kolkata said he could not walk on the terrace in the evening “without repellents”.