The Salt Lake civic authorities have decided to finish the repair of roads before Diwali.
Deputy mayor and the mayoral council member in charge of roads Anita
Mondal said road repairs would get completed before Diwali.
“We are going to get road repairs before Diwali. Our teams are already at work,” said Mondal on Sunday.
However, several engineers and residents said it was unlikely that they would get the repairs done within that timeline as they were yet to start.
This newspaper had reported on multiple occasions about the bad state of roads in Salt Lake and its adjoining areas that are putting thousands of motorists as well as pedestrians at risk of accidents every day.
Drivers of cars and two-wheelers headed to Karunamoyee crossing from Sector V have to brave deep potholes and craters at the Wipro Crossing near the JK Saha bridge in Salt Lake.
The artery leads to City Centre I and other places and has thousands of vehicles ferrying office-goers and residents every day from Salt Lake to Sector V and back.
However, the state of this road is such that accidents have become quite
common.
A senior official of the civic body’s road repairs department admitted that no thorough repairs had been done over at least the past eight years. And the movement of vehicles over the years had also made things worse and in several places, the asphalt layer had completely disintegrated.
“As a result of this the brickwork of the roads are exposed in multiple areas and in several places sharp edges of the bricks stick out that make it extremely difficult for motorists to drive or ride a two-wheeler on the roads,” the official said.
Another official of the road repairs department said they had very few days for the roads to be repaired properly before Diwali.
“There are very few days left. We have started road repairs but it is unlikely that we will finish on time,” said the official.
According to the official, the repairs are going to be only patchwork repairs as they are less expensive and take less time to complete.
“We can only do patchwork repairs and with very few days left it is quite unlikely that we are going to finish on time,” said the official.
The Salt Lake civic body has allotted Rs 10 lakh to each of the 41 wards to the councillors of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation.
However, civic officials said that little can be done with the funds given the extent of the damaged roads.