The dug-up portion where the taxi got trapped.

A taxi enters Finick Bazaar Street from Lindsay Street

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation has dug up a road right under the mayor’s nose but has not put up any signage telling commuters about it.

Result: Cars and other vehicles, including goods carriers, are entering the road — Hogg Street — only to realise that their way is blocked.

The drivers then have to back up for 100 metres or make a U-turn on the road that remains clogged with pedestrians and hawkers almost the entire day.

Hogg Street, a stone’s throw from the Calcutta Municipal Corporation headquarters on SN Banerjee Road, runs in front of Nizam’s restaurant and towards New Market’s northern gates.

A stretch of the thoroughfare, at the point where it meets Finick Bazaar Street and Market Street, has been dug up to refurbish an underground sewer line.

Vehicles are entering the road from both Esplanade and Lindsay Street. It is only on reaching the excavated portion that the commuters are realising that they are stuck.

“There should have been signage at the entrance to Hogg Street from either side announcing that the road has been dug up,” said Fidaus Hussain, a trader and a resident of the area. “Every day, hundreds of vehicles come to the point where the road has been dug up and then have to make risky manoeuvres to exit.”

On Wednesday, Metro saw a taxi enter Finick Bazaar Street, which runs along the eastern boundary of New Market, from Lindsay Street. Two women were on the rear seat of the taxi.

It was only when the taxi reached the crossing of Finick Bazaar Street and Hogg Street that the passengers and the driver realised that they could not move further.

The driver tried to take a right turn into Market Street hoping to access Free School Street. But Market Street was out of bounds, too.

“Work related to overhauling of the sewer line had ended on a stretch of Market Street more than a month ago but the CMC is yet to restore the road,” said Hussain.

“We are removing silt from an underground brick sewer that was built during the British era. The silt partially blocked the sewer line. We are also increasing the height of the conduit,” said a CMC official.

The official promised to put up signage soon. “We did put up some signage but someone might have removed it,” he said.