Drainage work along EM Bypass, paying solatium to farmers to take over a plot of land to build waste processing facilities in Dhapa and valve repairs for water supply networks — a slew of civic projects delayed or slowed down by the Lok Sabha elections — will begin in full swing now, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said.

The campaign for the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections saw the political
parties, especially the Trinamool Congress, talking about civic services in their campaigns.

Councillors of the ruling party were asked to conduct door-to-door campaigns and ask people if they had problems with water supply and drainage networks or if they were getting instalments of the welfare schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar or old-age pension on time.

Several stretches of EM Bypass remained waterlogged for several hours following rains in May.

KMC engineers had then said that the gully pits along EM Bypass and its service roads had choked because of a lack of cleaning.

A senior official told The Telegraph on Saturday that EM Bypass lacked a proper drainage network and many of the existing sewer lines need cleaning.

“Some of the sewer lines are across the road and they have to be cleaned. It will require permission from police to block stretches of the EM Bypass. The police had declined to give during the elections. This has delayed the work,” said the official.

Mayor Firhad Hakim, who was responding to complaints of waterlogging by a resident during the weekly phone-in programme Talk to Mayor, said the KMC will approach the police again for permission.

“The police did not give permission citing VIP movement during the elections. We will approach them again,” he said.

Some of the stretches that were waterlogged include the service lanes near the Ruby Hospital, the Ruby-bound stretch of EM Bypass opposite Silver Spring and the stretch in front of Captain Bheri.

Another project that slowed down was the construction of the Kalighat skywalk. “We did not have full strength of workers during the election. Since this was a seven-phase election, someone or the other was not at work as they went home to vote. This slowed down the project,” said the official.

The 430m-long skywalk between the SP Mukherjee Road-Kali Temple Road crossing and the Kalighat temple, similar to the skywalk in Dakshineswar, missed its first deadline in April 2023. The second deadline of December 2023 was also missed.

“We had set another deadline of June 2024, which we will also miss. A fresh deadline will be fixed soon,” said the senior official.

The elections also put on hold the payment of a solatium to farmers at Dhapa.

The KMC is taking back about 180 acres in Dhapa that are owned by the civic body. Over 820 farmers had been tilling the land for decades and the civic body decided to pay them the solatium at the rate of ₹50,000 per cottah.

“We prepared a proposal to pay the solatium and sent it to the state government. That approval got stalled after the elections were announced,” said the senior official.

KMC sources said deciding on the payment of the solatium could have been construed as a breach of the model code of conduct. “We hope the government will approve it soon,” said the official.

The civic body plans to set up three plants on the plot to process solid waste and generate electricity, manure and fuel out of it.

About 4,000 tonnes of solid waste are generated in the city every day but only 525 tonnes are processed.