CM inaugurates 4.4 km Garden Reach flyover

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday evening inaugurated the 4.4 km long Garden Reach flyover connecting Brooklyn crossing, close to Ramnagar at the Garden Reach end and terminating near Majherhat railway station. She announced a number of flyovers both in the north and southern parts of the city to end traffic snarls, construction of which will be complete in the next four to five years.

"The construction for the 7.5 km Zinzira Bazar – Batanagar flyover will be completed in six to seven months' time. We have plans to extend it to Joka and then to Garia.

It will take another five to six years and if we can do this, it will be the longest flyover in the country stretching for around 30 kilometres," Banerjee said.

She added that her government is spending around Rs 12,180 crore for infrastructure in the days to come. "Flyovers will come up from Ganesh Chandra Avenue to New Market, from Taratala to Tollygunge and then from Tollygunge to Jadavpur via Prince Anwar Shah Road.

There will be a flyover from Tala to Dunlop, another from Maniktala crossing alongside APC Road, another from Dhakuria to Jadavpur and also from Park Circus to Ballygunge," she maintained.

The Chief Minister further maintained that her government will also construct two other flyovers — one of which will connect EM Bypass to New Town and another from College More in Sector V to Salt Lake.

She also expressed her optimism that with the Metro projects like the Joka-BBD Bag, East-West Metro, Garia-Airport line that will be complete in the next few years, traffic flow will be extremely smooth bringing an end to congestion.

"There was only a single way to travel to the heart of the city from port areas like Garden Reach, Metiabruz, Rajabagan etc and that was by crossing over 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," state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim said.

The 4-lane flyover will be of immense help for the people from the port area to reach the heart of the city at a much lesser time.

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.