Kolkata’s new wave of coloured roads, floral motifs and painted flyovers is being presented as a festive beautification drive, but the public display also reveals how a government chooses to mark its arrival in the urban landscape. Ahead of Durga Puja, the West Bengal government has decorated roads, intersections, bridges, flyovers and riverfront ghats, turning routine infrastructure into a highly visible expression of political and cultural identity.
The drive is the first major Durga Puja celebration of the new BJP government in West Bengal. At Park Circus Crossing, Cabinet Minister Agnimitra Paul, who is in charge of the Urban Development and Municipal Affairs departments, was seen making alpona, a traditional form of floor and wall painting using rice flour. The artwork beneath the Park Circus connector has become one of the most prominent features of the programme.
Paul described the artwork as representing “the road of love and brotherhood” and linked it to the public mandate that brought the government to power. Her statement gives the beautification programme a significance beyond decoration. Roads and crossings are being used not only as physical spaces but also as places where the new administration can communicate its political message directly to residents and visitors.
The programme extends across several important parts of Kolkata. Red, pink, yellow and orange lanes have been added to sections of black-tarred roads, while busy crossings have been transformed with floral patterns. Gariahat bridge and Garia More junction are among the locations covered. Similar work has been undertaken at Red Road, and the ghats along the Hooghly are being decorated ahead of the festival. Paul said the Rashbehari and Park Street crossings could also be included if time permitted.
The geography of the work matters. These are not enclosed government premises or temporary event grounds alone. Crossings, bridges, flyovers and roads are some of the most visible components of a city’s everyday public realm. They are encountered by pedestrians, bus passengers, motorists, shopkeepers and visitors. Changing their appearance can quickly alter the way a city is perceived, even when the underlying transport, drainage or maintenance systems remain unchanged.
That distinction is central to understanding the programme. Beautification can improve the visual experience of a road or junction, but it does not by itself establish whether the space has become safer, more accessible or better maintained. The report does not provide the cost of the work, the source of funds, the contracting arrangements, the expected duration of the installations or the maintenance plan after the festival. Those details are important because the same public spaces must continue to perform their basic urban functions once the celebrations end.
The government’s choice of colour is also part of Kolkata’s recent political and administrative history. During the previous Trinamool Congress government, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had the city’s government buildings, flyovers, roadside railings and even taxis painted light blue. She had also spoken of transforming Kolkata into London, a promise that opponents later mocked. The present programme therefore enters an existing tradition in which the city’s visible surfaces become associated with the government in power.
This creates a recurring question about the relationship between urban governance and visual branding. A city’s colour scheme is easy to see and easy to attribute. It can communicate a sense of renewal without requiring residents to understand the administrative process behind it. By contrast, improvements to road quality, junction design, drainage, pedestrian movement or public transport tend to be less immediately symbolic, even when they have a more direct effect on daily life.
The available evidence does not establish that the beautification work has displaced spending on essential services. Nor does it establish the opposite. The criticism from the Opposition is directed at what it calls a question of priority and taxpayer value, but no expenditure figure is provided in the report against which that criticism can be assessed.
State Congress president Subhankar Sarkar called the programme “drama with people’s tax money” and said a minister’s responsibility was to provide services and make plans for the city’s development. CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty similarly questioned whether taxpayers’ money was being used and argued that education and employment should take priority if public funds were involved. These statements frame the dispute as a budgetary and governance issue, although the report does not include a response from the state government on the programme’s cost or financing.
The absence of a response from the Trinamool Congress also limits what can be concluded about the political contest around the drive. The report says that TMC MLA Kunal Ghosh and party spokesperson Pradeepta Mukherjee did not respond to calls. The disagreement is therefore documented through the government minister and Opposition voices, rather than through a full exchange between the principal political parties.
The programme also follows a major public event organised by the government on Mahalaya, the day that precedes the 10-day Durga Puja festival. The event at Eden Gardens included fireworks, laser shows and cultural performances to mark the advent of Puja. Together, the stadium event and the street-level decorations show a government using both large public spectacles and everyday urban infrastructure to establish the tone of its first festival season in office.
For municipal administration, this combination has two consequences. First, it places roads and public spaces at the centre of political communication. Second, it creates an obligation to explain how temporary celebration-related works fit within longer-term city management. A road that is painted for a festival still needs safe movement, clear markings, functioning lighting and regular maintenance. A crossing decorated with floral artwork still has to manage traffic and pedestrian access. The report does not indicate whether the painted lanes are artistic treatments or whether they have any traffic-management function, making it important not to confuse visual intervention with infrastructure improvement.
There is also a question of institutional responsibility. Paul’s charge over Urban Development and Municipal Affairs connects the programme to the departments responsible for the city’s civic and urban administration. Yet the report does not identify which municipal or state agencies are executing the work, who approved the designs, or how the projects are being monitored. Those details would help determine whether the programme is a coordinated urban design initiative, a festival-specific activity, or a collection of local interventions under a common political direction.
The streetscape itself can become an indicator of administrative priorities, but only when it is read alongside budgets, project schedules and service outcomes. In this case, the visible evidence is extensive: decorated roads, painted bridges, floral crossings, alpona beneath the Park Circus connector and planned work at additional junctions. The institutional and financial evidence remains limited in the material available.
That gap is the most important issue raised by Kolkata’s new colours. Governments are entitled to celebrate festivals and shape public spaces, but public-space projects also require transparency about cost, duration, procurement and upkeep. Without those details, residents can see the result but cannot fully evaluate the decision behind it.
Kolkata’s beautification drive therefore represents both a cultural intervention and a test of urban governance. It shows how quickly a new administration can alter the city’s visual language. Whether the programme becomes more than seasonal branding will depend on the official information that follows: the expenditure involved, the agencies responsible, the duration of the installations and the government’s explanation of how the work fits into wider city development plans.
