With the ‘puja mood’ setting in among Bengalis, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is trying to make the most of the ongoing dry spell for repairing roads. The roads department of the civic body is carrying out works round-the-clock, while chasing the Mahalaya deadline for repairing city roads.
As informed by mayor Firhad Hakim, most of the city roads are in a good condition while a few have developed potholes. According to the mayor, the technology of plastic roads by the road department of the civic body has proved to be fruitful overall. “However, a few roads, where the movement of cranes is a regular feature or even stretches where construction for the Metro is on, have been damaged. We had urged the city traffic police to provide the list of roads that need to be repaired and DC traffic has shared the stretches. Some roads like the Sealdah bridge, where the tram tracks were visible, have been repaired. We are carrying out the repair work at the road near Bypass, which is also getting damaged because of movement of cranes,” said Mr Hakim.
As reiterated by the mayor, if the dry spell continues to prevail for another seven to eight days, the municipal corporation hopes to complete the road repair works by Mahalaya. “This is because, if pitching is done during rains, it will get scraped off and the repairing would not be done properly. Therefore, we were waiting for dry spells as it was raining continuously for the past 10-12 days. We got the dry spells and work is being carried out 24×7. If the dry spell continues, the roads under KMC will no longer remain damaged.”
Meanwhile, the civic body has also decided to put up signages showing names of the custodians of various roads. “We have been instructed to put up signages with names of the respective authorities responsible for the upkeep of those stretches,” informed the mayor.