Garden Reach flyover to be made operational from March

Kolkata: The 4-km long Garden Reach flyover connecting Brooklyn crossing, close to Ramnagar at the Garden Reach end and terminating near Majherhat railway station will be thrown open for public in the first week of March.

State Urban Development minister Firhad Hakim, who also happens to be the MLA from Kolkata Port visited the flyover on Thursday and said finishing touches are now being given to it. This will help people from the port area to reach the heart of the city in much less time.

The trial run of the flyover was successfully conducted in presence of the minister.

"There was only a single way to travel to the heart of the city from port areas like Garden Reach,

Metiaburj, Rajabagan etc and that was by crossing the movable Bascule bridge. The alternative flyover has been a long standing demand of the residents of the area. We had to overcome a lot of hurdles and now the flyover is ready to be unveiled," Hakim said.

It may be mentioned that though the Port area is an integral part of Kolkata,

people travelling to central Kolkata say that they are travelling to Kolkata (Kalkatta-jana hai) when asked where they are headed.

"They would feel that they are somewhat cut off from proper Kolkata. But with this flyover hospitals like SSKM, and other private hospitals in Alipore area can be reached within a very short time," the minister added.

The estimated time to cross this stretch through the elevated road will be less than 10 minutes.

The road that most vehicles currently take runs in a different direction and takes between 30 and 40 minutes to cover, mainly because of heavy port traffic.

Sources in Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), which is the implementing agency for the project said the revised project cost for the flyover is Rs 339.92 crore and the state

has already paid land cost of Rs 36 crore to Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) and Rs 1.43 crore to Eastern Railway.

"There were a number of decks that needed to be cleared.

The permission from the Railways took a long time. Work had begun in October 2014 and deadline was pushed back on more than one occasion," a senior KMDA

official said adding that unavailability of land and encroachments delayed work on several stretches.

As per plans, private cars will take

the flyover while heavy goods vehicles and buses will take the old road.