Fear of Rajarhat blunder rerun

After the initial euphoria that isbound to hit anyone who takes a drive down Kona Expressway and then on toNational Highways 3 and 6, reality strikes all too soon. After sundown, the landof promise looks like a ghost town.Unless immediate steps are taken to develop infrastructure, West Howrah will go the Rajarhat way, where the lacunae in drainage, lighting, water supply and transportation has hit the realty dream hard. Whole condominiums in New Town are lying deserted, years after construction. This blunder is in danger of being repeated.Vastislands of darkness envelop you as you drive down Vidyasagar Setu and on to KonaExpressway. You feel for commuters, many of them women, who wait on darkenedroads for some mode of transport.While the developers promise basicfacilities in their housing and business complexes, even the administration doesnot have answers to many questions.Kona Expressway itself is aposer. On any given weekday, you would get stuck in unmanageable traffic snarlsthat start from the national highway and snake up to Drainage Canal Roadcrossing. How will the expressway withstand the additional pressure of 10 lakhresidents five years down the line?KMDA had developed the expressway and handed it to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) four years ago when it was supposed to be part of NH-117. After that the expressway has been nobody's baby. The new highway never happened. NHAI was unhappy thatthe expressway was just 46.5 metres wide and narrowed to 26 metres at someplaces. It wanted a width of 90 metres. "We agree that the expressway has to bewider to take on the additional load, but it is not possible to increase itbeyond 70 metres in many places since they are heavily populated," explainedDebdas Bhattacharya.The lack of service roads is also a seriousproblem. While the firms are building their own service roads to connect to KonaExpressway, at least 20 kuchcha roads are yet to be metalled. By KMDA's ownadmission, the stretch needs underground soling because of the marshy nature ofthe soil.No one wants to take responsibility for the lighting. KMDA says it has "handed over" the road to NHAI, while the latter says it has "handed" it to PWD. The PWD does not have any immediate plans to light up the road, apart from a project' of a 133-KV substation.Security is amajor concern. Realtors in the area complain of inadequate police protection.The zone is under the shared management of three police stations Domjur, Amtalaand Shibpur. Since projects are yet to open up to residents, the administrationis taking it easy but there are ominous signs. Recently, a fracas at a projectsite led to a violent clash where over 20 rounds were fired and several injured.The police reached 15 hours after the incident."Ideally there should be a separate police station for this stretch. I will negotiate with the police for this," said Howrah mayor Mamata Jaiswal, who is also the ex-officio chairperson of Howrah Improvement Trust. The other two burningissues are water supply and public transport. The development sites are yet tobe connected with HMC's water treatment plant at Puddapukur, which needs to beaugmented if so many new dwelling units are to be provided with potable water.As for transport, HMC is negotiating with the state transport department tointroduce new bus routes.