Multiple motorbikes skidded on the freshly coloured surfaces of Kolkata’s Chingrighata and Gariahat flyovers after rain on Wednesday afternoon, raising immediate concerns about road safety and the suitability of the treatment on busy elevated roads.
A video shared by Beleghata MLA Kunal Ghosh showed motorbikes and riders lying on the wet road surface. The nature of the injuries, if any, suffered by the riders was not known at the time of publication.
A Salt Lake resident told The Telegraph Online that he was driving with his daughter on the Chingrighata flyover when he saw motorcycles skid one after another. The account comes as the coloured surfaces remain exposed to regular traffic and monsoon-like rain conditions.
The incident follows comments made by urban development minister Agnimitra Paul to The Telegraph Online on Tuesday. Paul said the colours used on the flyovers were not permanent and could wash off after a spell of heavy rain or remain for four or five months.
The report does not specify the product applied, the contractor responsible for the work, or whether the coloured surface had been tested for skid resistance before being opened to traffic. It also does not state whether either flyover was closed or whether the surface was treated after the skidding incidents.
One of the general secretaries of the Bengal Congress, Ashutosh Chatterjee, had written to Paul, Kolkata Municipal Corporation municipal commissioner and administrator Smita Pandey, warning that the colours could be dangerous for riders and drivers because they had low skid resistance. Chatterjee said the incidents were foreseeable and described the decision to colour the roads as impractical.
“Oil-based colours cannot be applied on asphalt. Instead of repairing the roads, they are busy colouring. They failed to understand the basics,” Chatterjee told The Telegraph Online.
The episode places attention on a basic operational requirement for urban road treatments: a surface must remain safe when wet, particularly on flyovers where traffic moves at speed and riders have limited room to recover from a loss of grip. The supplied report, however, does not include an official technical assessment confirming the material’s composition or its measured friction performance.
The immediate public-safety questions are whether the coloured surfaces will be removed or made safer, whether traffic will be managed during further rain, and whether the authorities will inspect similar treatments elsewhere in Kolkata. No official response on those steps was included in the report.
