Kolkata: In a bid to ease traffic congestion around the Chingrighata crossing—especially for vehicles travelling from Salt Lake Sector V towards Science City—the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) is set to build a new concrete bridge with a steel girder.
The structure will extend from the existing narrow bridge over the Shantinagar canal up to Captain Bheri.
The current bridge forms the narrowest stretch on the Science City-bound flank of EM Bypass. Adding to the bottleneck, a bus stop located at the starting point often causes traffic to slow down as buses halt to pick up passengers.
“To address this, we have decided to construct a bridge that will run above the existing one up to Captain Bheri and shift the bus stop to the new bridge. This will help decongest the area and ensure smoother travel for Science City-bound vehicles from Salt Lake Sector V,” said a KMDA official.
According to the plan, the new bridge will be 60-metre-long with a 10-metre-wide carriageway and a pavement on the eastern flank. The project is estimated to cost around Rs 12 crore. The tender process has been completed and forwarded to Nabanna for necessary approval.
“The stretch from Nicco Park to Chingrighata takes nearly 20 to 30 minutes to cross, though under normal conditions it should take just five. The new bridge should ease this bottleneck considerably,” said Sunil Debnath, an SDF office employee who commutes daily from Sector V to his Santragachi home.
Meanwhile, KMDA has completed about 70 per cent of the widening work on the EM Bypass at Laskarhat near Tagore Park.