KOLKATA: Finally some good news for residents staying close to Garia in the southern fringe who have endured flooding and ill effects of dug up roads for the past six months due to an abnormal delay and a subsequent expulsion of a reputable contractor engaged in Kolkata Environment Improvement & Investment Project (KEIIP) funded by Asian Development Bank.Sensing widespread resentment among beneficiaries in some localities due to non-completion of a drainage upgrade project under KEIIP, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has stepped in and taken up restoration of dug up roads in areas where the residents have been the worst victims.Take for example, the KMC civil engineering department has started a road restoration programme at Bramhapur south where a contractor had dug up large stretches of roads for laying an underground sewerage network. Though the roads here are lying dug-up for past six months, the drainage upgrade project was still on till a couple of months ago. However, the residents of the area were plunged in real troubles after the work got stalled amid monsoon making the area virtually a death trap for the locals.As the locals made frantic calls to local councilor Chayan Bhattacharya requesting him to ensure a proper restoration of the dug-up roads, Bhattacharya took up the matter with the civic top brass following which the KMC civil engineering department intervened and engaged contractors for restoration of battered roads.A visit to the area revealed that a group of labourers were engaged in re-laying activities of a road at Bramhapur south which is lying in shambles. A supervisor of a contractor engaged in the restoration project maintained that it was an uphill task to restore the road in its original condition within a specified deadline. “We have been given a fortnight’s time to restore the road but going by the condition, it seems to be an uphill task,” a KMC civil engineering department official said. However, Biplab Bose, a teacher of the locality expressed who fell down on the dug-up road and broke his left leg a month ago, expressed satisfaction that others would be spared of such a pain. “It heartening to see that the KMC has finally pitched in and started repair of the broken roads. My question is that will the civic body need to dig it again for the drainage upgrade scheme as the work is still pending,” Bose asked.A KMC civil engineering department senior official who has been assigned to look after the restoration job said that such road restoration would be taken up for various areas under KMC wards 111, 112, 113 and 114. However, the civic body would not be able to take up unfinished drainage upgrade work, the civic official said. “We have decided to repair or restore battered roads in areas such as Bramhapur, Niva Park, Rania and other areas where the KEIIP work was in progress. But we can’t be able to provide drainage connections to households till further order from the civic authorities,” the KMC official said.

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