Pieces of bamboo, a heap of plastic cups and pieces of paper remain littered on the College Square ground. The condition of the roads is even more appalling. The holes dug on the streets to restrict crowd movement during the four days of festivity have not been filled up yet -a visit to College Street, C R Avenue and AJ C Bose Road will bear testimony to this fact. The scenario at Raja S C Mullick Road in Jadavpur and Suren Sarkar Road, Beliaghata is no different.

Pits yet to be filled, grounds strewn with hoardings, garbage

The temporary banners and hoardings have not been removed either. According to the records of Art Age and Sanskriti (the two outdoor advertisement agencies to whom the Kolkata Municipal Corporation had outsourced the task of collecting Puja-related tax) the total number of temporary hoardings that were displayed in Kolkata this Puja is 95,000. As per KMC's instructions, these banners were supposed to be pulled down on dashami. But the structures remain where they were put up.

"The KMC gets a sum of Rs 1,600 from each Sarbojanin Durga Puja commit tee. But the sum spent on renovating the gardens and parks after Durga Puja is much more," said Faiyaz Ahmed Khan Member, Mayor-in-Council of Parks and Gardens department, KMC.

According to Ahmed,

"The total amount of money spent every year on the renovation of parks and gardens after the Pujas is about Rs 10 lakh. A large part of this amount is spent on restoring College Square, Mohammad Ali Park and Kumartuli Park to their former condition."