Calcutta High Court on Friday slammed the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government for its failure to control the chaos on the streets and curb the road mishap count.

A division bench of Chief Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Justice A.K. Ganguly turned the heat on the government while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) that urged the court to intervene in matters of traffic mismanagement, hawker menace and bad roads.

The court rap came on a day when t he death count rose with a 75-year-old man being crushed under the wheels of a private bus on route no. 30C at the intersection of RG Kar Road and Canal Street. The driver managed to flee with the vehicle.

The division bench asked the government to issue identity cards to drivers, conductors and rickshaw-pullers and take tough measures against rash driving.

?The government is directed to file a report stating what steps it has taken against the drivers of school buses who are found driving roughly,? the bench also stated.

?The total road length of Calcutta is much less than Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. Total road length of the city is 104 km, against 700 km in Delhi and 400 km in Mumbai. Why is the state government not taking adequate steps against footpath encroachers to allow smoother passage of vehicles?? asked the chief justice.

Justice Sirpurkar singled out Strand Road and Rashbehari Avenue, where ?pavements on both sides of road have been occupied by hawkers?, before adding that ?the condition of north Calcutta is horrible?.

The bench went on to observe how poor the condition of roads was ?due to lack of proper maintenance?.