12 Kolkata: The Kolkata Traffic Police will now allow app-based buses to take a right turn below the flyover at the Chingrighata crossing from EM Bypass into Salt Lake Bypass. It will also let vehicles take the slip road near Captain Bheri in a few weeks and widen the busy crossing by ensuring quick demolition of a building, housing a popular sweet shop, there, with the help of KMDA and Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation. These measures are being taken to ease the jam at Chingrighata, especially in the evening rush hour and to ensure the long queues of vehicles do not cross more than 300m either on EM Bypass or Salt Lake Bypass.
Kolkata Police commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma visited the Chingrighata crossing on Monday to take stock of the situation, especially of Sector V traffic moving onto EM Bypass towards Science City in the evening. "Around 550 app-based minibuses travel from New Town-Sector V to south Kolkata in the morning and evening. Another 250 will join services by March. As a trial, we have stopped these buses from taking the Chingrighata flyover onto Salt Lake Bypass in the morning as the large volume stops traffic," said a Lalbazar officer. "Instead, we are asking these bus drivers to take a right turn onto Salt Lake Bypass from the main crossing below the flyover between 8.30 am and 11 am. We will make it permanent."
Kolkata Traffic Police and Bidhannagar Police will follow an SOP to manage the evening 5 pm-7.30 pm traffic. "We will stop the EM Bypass north-to-south vehicles if the jam tail on Salt Lake Bypass crosses Sukantanagar. On the EM Bypass side, we will not let the tail cross a popular garment mall beyond Beleghata Building Mor," said a Beleghata Traffic Guard cop.
The commissioner also discussed a few steps for long-term solution. "We now need infrastructural help as almost all other options to decongest Chingrighata have been tried. For a beginning, we will soon be handed over the south-north slip road on EM Bypass, between Captain Bheri and Beleghata. Metro is expected to complete the pitch-laying work soon," said an officer. To manage the large volume of vehicles from Salt Lake, Sector V and New Town towards south, the traffic police have proposed adding a lane on both flanks of EM Bypass. An officer said the building housing VIP Sweets will be razed to make way for the expansion. "KMDA has identified an alternative site, and the shop owner, whose family also lives in that building, has agreed to the proposal. Construction of this new building will start in Jan and once they are shifted, the present building will be pulled down," he said. KMDA has started the process of engaging an agency for sub-soil investigation at RA-12, RA-13 and RA-14 in Salt Lake Sector-IV area in Sukantanagar for the rehabilitation of establishments that would be affected for the proposed road widening at Chingrighata by around 10m. "The expansion will help faster traffic movement and buses can wait on the side to pick up passengers," a KMDA official said.
Also, the hurdle for the long-proposed underpass at Chingrighata is set to be removed with Verma's intervention. While KMDA gave its nod for construction, the KMC sanction is yet to arrive. The underpass will come up at Sukantanagar on one side and on the other, near Jalvayu Vihar and near a KMC drainage facility on Canal South Road.
(with inputs from Suman Chakraborti)
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