Just after the April 4 accident in which 21 people had lost their lives, Municipal Commissioner Tapas Chatterjee promised to separate the road from the nearby Bagjola canal by erecting a wall from Ultadanga since water from the canal made the road slippery leading to frequent accidents. Till today, just over half a kilometre of the stretch has been fenced. Besides, the work on the two footbridges at Baguiati and Kestopur crossings is yet to begin.

Asked about the delay in beginning the project, Chatterjee said: “We will start the work very soon. One has to understand that the delay is due to the vehicular pressure on the VIP Road.”

With the onset of monsoon, dredged slush is back on the road, mostly along the Golaghata-Lake Town and Baguiati-Joramandir stretches of the thoroughfare. Dredging work had started almost a month ago in preparation for monsoon when the low-lying areas of Lake Town and Bangur get flooded.

“The slush makes the road very slippery when it rains, making it extremely difficult to drive,” said Neeraj Basotia, a resident of Baguiati.

With the construction boom, building materials are found dumped on the road, making the two-lane airport link narrower.

The police blame it on lack of manpower to check such incidents, even though six points on the road have been identified as “highly accident-prone.”