The city police have drawn up a list of battered and broken roads and submitted it to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) for immediate repairs.

Senior officers at the police headquarters in Lalbazar said the list was drawn up based on reports from the traffic guards across the city.

“In some places, the top bituminous layer has peeled off while deep potholes and craters have surfaced in others. The list has pictures of some of the battered stretches attached,” said a senior police officer.

Stretches of some of the roads that feature on the list include Darga Road, MG Road, Central Avenue, James Long Sarani and Dhalai Bridge on EM Bypass.

The police said these stretches require immediate repairs because of their condition.

“Both flanks of EM Bypass around Dhalai bridge are marked with several potholes making it difficult for vehicles to move. Water accumulates in these potholes converting some of them into craters,” the police officer said.

Dhalai Bridge in Garia is a vital structure connecting EM Bypass to the city’s southern bypass. The potholes have led to traffic snarls and resulted in long queues extending up to 700m in the area under the jurisdiction of the Baruipur police district, the police said.

“There are so many potholes around Dhalai Bridge that vehicles wobble dangerously while trying to negotiate them,” said a resident of Narendrapur.

Most of the Bypass is now looked after by the KMC. Only a small stretch of Bypass, between the Dhalai bridge and the Kamalgazi crossing, is maintained by the KMDA (Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority). The KMDA was earlier in charge of the entire Bypass.

“We have written to the KMDA to take up the repairs of this particular stretch of EM Bypass,” a police officer said.

Besides Dhalai Bridge, stretches of James Long Sarani in Behala near the Sakherbazar crossing and MG Road in central Calcutta have developed potholes.

Officers from at least two traffic guards have sent reports urging immediate repairs to avert accidents.

“MG Road has tram tracks and potholes make it challenging for motorists and two-wheeler riders,” said a senior officer overseeing traffic movement in central Calcutta.

Many of Calcutta’s roads are in poor shape every monsoon. Several engineers blamed poor drainage, which leads to waterlogging, as one of the reasons why the top bituminous layer wears off, resulting in the formation of craters.

Improper slopes of some roads also result in waterlogging, they added.

Senior engineers in the KMC’s roads department said they were collating reports about the condition of roads from the police “before drawing up a repair plan”.

“Wet road conditions make it challenging to take up repair work because the bitumen tends to come off. We will start the repair work after the roads dry up,” a senior KMC official said.

Calcuttans hear that excuse every season.