Bitumen crisis: Road repairs hit a roadblock

Kolkata: If you find the neighbourhood roads dug up and crying for repair for over a week, you may need to wait for some more days. With the civic body's hot-mix plants remaining shut for non-availability of bitumen, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation roads department has kept road-repair drives on hold across Kolkata. According to a KMC official, a requisition for procurement of bitumen has been sent to the state urban development and municipal affairs department for approval.Some of the prominent roads that have been lying dug up and yet to get restored include Bankim Mukherjee Road (New Alipore), Prince Gholam Mohammed Road (close to Deshapriya Park), NSC Bose Road (Tollygunge), DH Road and parts of EM Bypass. Of these roads, the condition of New Alipore is pathetic and needs early intervention, conceded a KMC roads department senior official. However, another KMC official said that efforts were on to take up repair of stretches of the vital New Alipore road from next week. "We have been receiving lots of requests from New Alipore residents to wrap up the repair work fast. We have kept our workforce ready for repair of New Alipore road and are waiting for the hot-mix plants to resume operation," said a KMC official.According to a KMC water supply department official, several major roads in south Kolkata and adjacent lanes were dug up for laying of water pipes in the past few months. "While we have been able to restore dug-up roads in some neighbourhoods, the rest are waiting for restoration as our roads department has run out of bitumen," said the civic official.Amitava Sen, a New Alipore resident, complained of inaction on the part of the KMC roads department in restoring the dug-up road. "We have been suffering due to the pathetic condition of the major thoroughfare. While traffic snarls have become regular, freak accidents have also taken place in the past couple of weeks," said Sen.Apart from restoring New Alipore Road, the KMC roads department has been struggling to repair several stretches in Behala and Tollygunge for lack of bitumen supply. "Our plants are lying idle as bitumen stock at our stores has dried up. We hope to restore bitumen supply next week and restart our road-repair drive," said a KMC official. According to the civic official, the civic body needs around 12,000 tonnes of bitumen a year to conduct repair of the city's roads.