KMC places main beam of footover bridge at Exide Crossing

Kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) took a major step towards the construction of the modern footover bridge at Exide Crossing by placing the main beam of the over bridge with the help of two cranes on Thursday night.

"The work was undertaken during the night to ensure that there is no disruption to the movement of the traffic in one of the busiest roads in the city," a senior official of Town Planning & Town Development (TP&TD) wing of the KMC said.

The main objective behind building the foot overbridge is to enable the pedestrians to cross smoothly from the side of Calcutta Club to the opposite side where the Exide building is located. "The smooth and uninterrupted movement of vehicles will take place along the stretch," the official added.

KMC is supervising the construction work of the overbridge which will be the second-of-its-kind in the city. A similar one is located near Alipore Zoological Gardens. It was inaugurated in February, 2018 .

The bridge will be in close proximity to the gates of Rabindra Sadan metro station located on either side of the road. There will be an escalator on either side for ascending. There will be a staircase for descending. The paucity of space has proved to be a barrier in the construction of both-way escalators at the site.

Exide Industries is bearing the entire expense of construction under its CSR project, which will be to the tune of Rs 4.5 crore. The foot overbridge will be nicely illuminated and 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 fees to the KMC for advertisement rights," the official added.

The work is expected to be complete in another two months. KMC has already sought permission from the Defence Ministry for construction of another foot overbridge on Turf View Road.