12 Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is gearing up to inaugurate the Kalighat skywalk early in 2025. Preparations are being made after chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced in Digha that the much-awaited skywalk will be opened to devotees in the middle of Feb.
According to a KMC official, the construction of the skywalk is complete, and the civic body's civil engineering team is busy with last-minute preparations for the inauguration. Although it was initially slated to be inaugurated before Kali Puja, the new date for the commissioning of the walkway, which links SP Mukherjee Road to Kalighat temple, has not been fixed. While a section of civic officials blamed inaction on the part of the construction firm for missing several deadlines, they said KMC was waiting for the relocation of 176 hawkers from Jatin Das Park to a newly constructed building in Kalighat, adjacent to the temple.
"Our primary focus now is to shift hawkers of the Kalighat Hawkers Market from JD Park at Hazra crossing, where they were temporarily accommodated to facilitate the skywalk construction. There are also some hawkers who did business on the pavement along the road below the skywalk who need to be rehabilitated as well," said a KMC official.
The KMC leadership had earlier planned to inaugurate the skywalk on Oct 28. The CM visited the Kalighat temple with Firhad Hakim in April and asked him to complete the construction work at the earliest. The CM also addressed the issue of hawker rehabilitation in the Kalighat temple complex, stating this would be done once the work for the skywalk is completed.
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