Soon, 3 including Basanti Highway to be widened

The West Bengal Highway Development Corporation (WBHDC) will soon take up the work of widening three crucial highways in the state including the one connecting Basanti in South 24 Parganas with Kolkata.

The two other roads those will be widened to four lanes are Barrackpore-Kalyani Expressway and the other one between Barojagoli to Kapa.

A high-level meeting was held in the state secretariat, Nabanna, on Thursday in this connection. Senior officials of the WBHDC chalked out a plan to initiate the work of widening the roads as early as possible.

According to an official, first of all, they would be finalising the consultant who will be carrying out the study that has to be done before initiating any project.

Subsequently, the Detailed Project Report (DPR) will be made and based on the selected DPR, the work will commence.

"All the necessary tasks which are needed to be carried out before initiating the work on ground will be completed as early as possible. So there will be no delay in initiating the work of widening of the roads," he said.

Widening of the Basanti Highway was a long-standing demand as several accidents claimed lives of many as the road is narrow and the traffic load on it always remained too heavy.

A few years ago, the police too had proposed the state government to take steps to widen the road.

The police had stated that it would not be possible to reduce the number of accidents on the highway if it is not widened.

There are sharp turns and vehicles approaching from the opposite direction on the narrow two way road are not visible. Hence, it leads to major road accidents.

After the change of guard in the state, a stretch of the Basanti Highway up to Kolkata Leather Complex has come under the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Police and the rest of the stretch is under South 24 Parganas Police.

Several initiatives like setting up of road signs and proper illumination was taken up to reduce accidents. But widening of the road was found by the police to be the only solution to check accidents and at the same time, to ease out traffic movement as this is a major thoroughfare for thousands of trucks to reach Basanti from the city and vice versa.

Several meetings were held in this regard in the Left Front regime. But no proper step was taken for widening the road.

Similarly, the necessity of widening the Barrackpore-Kalyani Expressway and the other one between Barojagoli to Kapa was also felt.

The Basanti Highway is 29 km long while the other two is 40 km each that will be widened.