Many pockets in New Town and stretches of VIP Road, including a 1-km section near the Haldirams outlet, remained under water till Sunday, more than 36 hours after the intense spell of rain had stopped.
The areas remained flooded despite the deployment of suction machines on gully pits and rainwater channels by the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA).
Traffic crawled through the flooded stretches while workers cleared gully pits and opened manholes so the water could be drained out.
“We deployed men and suction machines but gully pits and channels are completely choked by cement, sand and stone chips,” said a PWD official, who was overseeing the drainage operations along VIP Road.
A waterlogged stretch in New Town. Telegraph picture
In New Town, a 1.5-km stretch that leads to Derozio College from the first signal after crossing City Centre II was under knee-deep water till late on Saturday.
Samaresh Das, a resident of Greenwood Elements, which is on this stretch, wondered why the authorities had not cleared the gully pits and drainage networks before the onset of the monsoon. “This is unacceptable in a planned city that has come up only recently,” Das said.
The entire Balaka Abasan in Action Area I and the road in front of it were flooded.
An NKDA official said most of the rainwater channels and gully pits had been choked by construction materials dumped along roads.
“Despite deploying suction machines, we could not clear gully pits and channels. Most of them were choked as sand, cement and stone chips had fused together. Labourers with hammers and chisels were deployed to chip away the blocks,” the NKDA official said.
Construction materials dumped along roads in New Town are not hard to miss in this otherwise planned township of parks, boulevards, smart residential highrises and mixed-use buildings.
A Hidco official said they had asked construction material.supply syndicates not to dump the items on the streets but they rarely comply.
“We tried to impose fines but since the syndicates are all politically connected, nothing much could be achieved,” said the official.
