Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday inaugurated a modern foot overbridge at Alipore infront of Zoological Gardens through remote control from a government programme at Tarakeswar in Hooghly district.
The footbridge with all modern facilities has been developed by Kolkata Municipal Corporation under PPP mode. It is 110 ft wide with the facility of escalator and stair cases on both sides and also nicely illuminated. The entire bridge is under CCTV surveillance.
There is also digital display of important information like time, temperature, humidity etc on both the side of the bridge for the general people and visitor of the Zoo garden.
"The main objective behind the bridge 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 near Alipore Zoo," said Baiswanor Chattopadhyay, Member Mayor-In-Council who looks after the PPP projects of KMC.
The total cost of the project has Rs 4 crore. It may be mentioned that KMC has already earmarked some spots in the city for construction of foot bridges under PPP mode for the safety of the pedestrians. The places include - Deshapriya Park, Ballygunge Siksha Sadan, Gariahat Road , South City, Exide Crossing, Turf View Road and Alipore Zoological Gardens. The spots were selected on the basis of their proximity to frequent road accidents. However space constraint has delayed the construction of such footbridges.
"We are in constant touch with Kolkata Police and holding meetings on a regular basis to overcome this paucity of space that has resulted in delay of work. We are hopeful that things will be sorted out soon," a senior official of KMC said.
However the KMC and the KP are worried that the foot overbridges (FOB) existing in the city are severely under utilised.
"Despite the presence of elevators in some of these FOB's people hardly use
them," an official in KP's traffic wing said.