Kolkata: Incessant rain and protest rallies affected traffic in several parts of the city. Major roads like Amherst Street, Sukeas Street, Keshab Chandra Sen Street, portions of Diamond Harbour (DH) Road and the service roads along Bypass were inundated due to rain that lashed the city since Monday morning.Waterlogging led to chaos on the roads around Science City and Mominpore.Sources in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said several waterlogging-prone areas in north and central Kolkata were among the worst-hit areas. Dum Dum, Belgachia, Beleghata, APC Roy Road, Bidhan Sarani, Chittaranjan Avenue and College Street were waterlogged as these areas received heavy rain, said a KMC sewerage and drainage department senior official.Moreover, the closing of the lock gates along the Hooghly due to high tide added to the waterlogging woes in several north and Central Kolkata neighbourhoods in the afternoon.Vehicles travelling from Chingrighata toward Salt Lake Sector V moved slower than those moving from Science City to Chingrighata. Thus, traffic movement between Science City and Chingrighata normalised quicker. Traffic continued to crawl on Maa Flyover for most of the day. A protest rally against police recruitment, organised between Sealdah and Esplande amid pouring rain, only added to the pressure on APC Road, AJC Bose Road, Lenin Sarani and SN Banerjee Road. The average time taken to commute between Maniktala, Sealdah and then to Esplanade took about 25 to 30 minutes more in the afternoon. Another protest rally from Hazra Road to the DM office in Alipore, also affected the traffic flow. “After the rally started, the only connector from north to Esplanade was CR Avenue. As such, we had to shift to manual signalling, giving preference to the north-south corridor and holding up cross traffic for a few extra seconds. This in turn, left MG Road with heavy traffic,” said a senior traffic cop.Senior officials stated that normal traffic flow was restored once water receded completely from the submerged corridors.
