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Bengal

Exide overbridge project groundwork begins

Kolkata: The second modern foot overbridge in the city, based on public private partnership (PPP) model, with all modern facilities is coming up at Exide Crossing in South Kolkata. The groundwork for construction of the overbridge has already started and the civic body has chopped off five trees on the footpath to facilitate its construction.

The bridge will be in close proximity to the gates of Rabindra Sadan metro station located on either sides of the road.

"It will be more or less similar in look to the one that have come up at Alipore. There will be facilities of escalators and stair cases on either sides," said a senior official of the Town Planning department of KMC which will be overseeing the construction. Exide Industries will bear the entire expense of construction which will be in the tune of Rs 4 crore. The foot overbridge will be nicely illuminated and will be under CCTV surveillance.

Exide will have the rights for putting up advertisements in the foot overbridge. "We will be signing an agreement for a period of 20 to 30 years in which the company will be paying a fee to the KMC for advertisement rights," the official added.

The KMC has cut down trees after taking necessary permission for the state Forest department and have already earmarked places where they will be planting the same number of trees.

In February 2018, when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had inaugurated a modern foot overbridge in front of Alipore Zoological Gardens through remote control at a government programme at Tarakeswar in Hooghly district. It was the first foot overbridge under PPP model. The one at Exide will be the second such bridge in the city. KMC has already sought permission from the Defence Ministry for construction of another foot overbridge on Turf View Road.

"The main objective behind these foot overbridges is to enable the pedestrians to cross smoothly from one side of the Alipore Road to another and also to have smooth and uninterrupted movement of vehicles," said DG (Town Planning), KMC Biswajit Majumder.

The spots have been selected as these places have witnessed a number of road accidents.

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