Kolkata: Aiming to meet its Mahalaya (Oct 10) deadline, Kolkata Municipal Corp-oration (KMC) on Monday started a night drive to repair some of the cratered stretches on arterial roads across the city.However, with scores of roads left battered by the rain, the civic body will have to work overtime to complete the repairs within the deadline, ahead of Durga Puja.KMC roads department began with the high speed Eastern Metropolitan (EM) Bypass corridor near Chingrighata intersection where huge craters had developed.The repair work started before midnight and continued for the next few hours.A separate KMC road repair team took up work on Chittaranjan Avenue. The stretches near Hedua and Raja Nabakrishna Street were repaired during the night. The stretch between Beadon Street and Girish Park was also repaired. Repair work was also assigned for stretches on the rain-battered Maniktala Main Road.Based on feedback from citizens, the civic body’s road wing concentrated on repairing some of the worst stretches at Lalbazar Street, B B Ganguli Street and BBD Bagh. KMC road repair team also took up repair of several roads in and around the city’s Central Business District, covering stretches on Netaji Subhas Road and near Fairlie Place and Writers’ Building.“This is the first phase of a special repair drive where we have included several arterial roads in north Kolkata, central Kolkata and stretches on EM Bypass. In the next phase, we will move towards south and south-west Kolkata,” said a KMC roads department official. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Road and some stretches on DH Road will also be repaired.Kolkata Traffic Police had urged KMC and Public Works Department to repair the rain-ravaged roads. Cops said they received complaints from commuters in Port, East Behala and Jadavpur divisions. They have submitted an initial list of damaged roads to KMC, with EM Bypass and DH Road being at the top of the list. Cops also want KMC to focus on MG Road (Tollygunge). A civic official said priority will be given to repair on Taratala Road. Maa Flyover, Bondel Road, Raja Subodh Mullick Road, Cossipore Road and Canal East and Canal West Roads also need to be repaired.
