Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has created a record of sorts by filling up 70,000 pot holes in the city’s streets within 72-hours, in order to provide a smooth ride during the upcoming Durga Puja festival starting end of this week.
“There will be no potholes on city roads during the Puja. We repair roads before the Puja every year but work started late this year because of intermittent rains,” city mayor Sovan Chatterjee said.
A survey was conducted by the civic body through its roads and civil assistant engineers of all the 148 wards that make the city over the past week and submitted their reports to the borough executive engineers, a civic source said. At the civic headquarters, all the numbers were added and the final figure turned out to be 70,000.
“The estimated cost of repairing the potholes was Rs400 million (Dh22 million). But it will be temporary though. The sole aim is to have good roads during the Puja.” said an engineer of the KMC.
However, this has surprised engineers as many believe that the repairs will not even last for a week. “This is political gimmickry at its best. No civic body can repair roughly 922 potholes every hour. It just shows how bad the city roads have become,” said Partha Dutta, a civil engineer.
The situation of the ground is that though the potholes have vanished temporarily, it is almost like a hump on the road which is slowing traffic further. “Forget about a smooth ride, the work done is so shabby that it has started to wear off even before the 72-hours. It will not even last the four days that mark the Durga Puja festivities,” said Rishikesh Ghosh, an architectural engineer.
Every year the monsoon ensures citizens suffer on the roads due to their poor condition. “The workmanship along with entrenched corruption ensures that roads are built with such poor quality material that it never lasts a year. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had been making claims of development but his mayor who is also a cabinet minister has shown the real picture,” said Tarak Das, reputed city planner.
Engineers of the civic body though claim that there is very little way out of this menace as water logging on most roads lead to wearing of the bitumen lair leading to pot holes. “Due to high intensity rains and the water logging the bitumen lair peals of leading to potholes. There are roads like Red Road — built by the British as a space for landing aircraft during the Second World War — do not have water logging leading for which there is hardly any potholes,” the engineer said.
