Maheshtala Municipality undertakes 3 projects

Kolkata: The Maheshtala Municipality has undertaken three major projects, after completion of which, will make life smoother for Maheshtala that shares almost one fourth of its boundary with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

"We are coming up with a super specialty hospital at ward 16 at Santoshpur Government Colony with 250-bed facility. It will have all sorts of medical facilities including emergency and OPD. The five storeyed hospital building with basement entails an investment of Rs 59 crore," Dulal Das, chairman of Maheshtala Muncipality said.

The hospital building is now getting the final touches in its interior structure and will open its doors in January next year. "It has been a long-standing demand of the residents of Maheshtala and Budge Budge for a quality hospital with affordable treatment at a low cost. We are hopeful that the hospital will be of tremendous benefit to the people in this part of the state. "An underground sewerage system will be taken up to solve the problem of waterlogging in Maheshtala. The Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority is executing the project and the state government has allocated Rs 100 crore.

"The first two tenders did not evoke satisfactory responses. The KMDA is floating the third tender with certain changes in terms and condition," a top municipality official said.

Das further informed that the third major project is a linking road of Batanagar with Nature Park in Brace Bridge. The 3.5 km stretch adjacent to the Ganga will connect Metiabruz in the Port area and then a further 6.5 km road that already exists will connect this road with Nature Park. "This road has been planned as an alternative to Budge Budge Trunk (BBT) Road. If for some reasons there is heavy congestion in BBT Road, residents can take this route," Das said.

An official in the road department of the civic body said that the cost of the road will be around Rs 33 crore and some government fund has been sought for it. "There is a canal in the route and a small bridge needs to be constructed over it," the official said adding that the target is to complete the project by March 2018.

The work for the 6.8 km elevated road flyover stretching from Jinjira Bazar to Batanagar is also expected to be complete by the middle of 2018. "All these projects involving Maheshtala in South 24 Parganas will usher in a sea change in civic amenities in the next few years," Das said.