Four days after repair, bitumen layer on Karunamoyee bridge wears off

KOLKATA: Barely four days after Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) engineers claimed to have carried out minor repairs on

Karunamoyee bridge

that connects Tollygunge with Haridevpur, Behala and Siriti, the bitumen cover at the same spot reportedly wore off on Thursday evening.

The police and KMDA officials refused to read too much in to the incident, saying that the problem was over the bitumen layer. Incidentally, unlike the last time when cops were quick to inform KMDA about the incident, this time senior officials from the government agency were allegedly kept in the dark for the first couple of hours.

In the evening, KMDA experts claimed that the problem was a “small” one. “Last time, there was subsidence between two expansion points. We had rectified the problem by putting a plate over the points and then poured bitumen over it. Now, most likely due to rain, the bitumen might have worn off. We will rectify it again, using either hot bitumen or even concrete, so that such an incident does not get repeated,” said an official.

Police said they have used guard rails to cordon off the area. “To naked eyes, it seems the newly-laid bitumen cover has worn off allowing water to accumulate. The KMDA has not found anything to stop traffic from plying on this bridge. This incident cannot be equated with the last one, even though both were minor in nature,” said an officer.

The incident led to a sudden traffic snarl. With traffic jams being reported from Hyde Road towards Behala across Taratala Road, Hyde Road and CGR Road due to excessive movement of trucks that were stuck due to Tuesday’s bandh, many motorists who tried to take this route back to Behala got stuck for about 20-30 minutes to cross the stretch between ITC Sangeet Research Academy (located near Tollygunge) and the Karunamoyee crossing — a stretch covering about a kilometre.

The incident also triggered panic initially. “The rain will be there till the next month. It is natural that when you repair a

bridge

and use bitumen, you should keep it in mind. If so many engineers cannot even decidec which bitumen to use, it speaks poorly about the maintenance of bridges in the city,” said Anirban Ganguly, a resident of Haridevpur.

Though KMDA engineers have played down the seriousness of the damage, experts said unless the gaps are restored with urgency, the expansion at the joint will cause stress and further subsidence. “The repair job on the bridge might be a minor one, but one should not take the issue lightly,” said an expert. Sources said KMDA officials will be looking into similar jamming of expansion joints in other city bridges as well.