The Kalighat skywalk, which has been in the making for over four years, will be inaugurated on Monday.
The trunk of the 435m-long skywalk takes off at the SP Mukherjee Road-Kali Temple Road intersection and ends outside the gates of the Kalighat temple.
A 30-metre arm of the skywalk starts near the Kalighat fire brigade intersection and merges with the trunk near Kalighat police station.
There are five points of entry or exit: from SP Mukherjee Road; outside the Kalighat temple; on Sadananda Road; at the Kalighat fire station intersection; and from the second floor of the new Kalighat Hawkers’ Corner.
The skywalk, which is standing on 50 portals or goal-post shaped structures supporting it from below, is 6.5 metres above the road.
“Chief minister Mamata Banerjee will open the skywalk on the eve of Poila Boishakh,” said a KMC official.
A senior engineer of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), which built the skywalk, said that along with the construction of the skywalk, the road underneath has seen a transformation.
Kali Temple Road had multiple encroachments before the construction of the skywalk began.
“The encroachments have been removed. One can now take the Kali Temple Road that is 25m wide from its intersection with SP Mukherjee Road and drive past the temple. That was unimaginable earlier,” said the engineer.
The footpath along Kali Temple Road has been renovated, too, with newly laid paver blocks.
“We have widened the footpath. Earlier, it was between 6ft and 7ft wide. Now the footpath is 12ft wide. We have demarcated space for hawkers on the footpath, leaving two-thirds of the width free for pedestrians following the street vending rules,” said the engineer.
The construction of the skywalk and the sprucing up of the pavement and roads have cost ₹100 crore, said an engineer.
The construction of the skywalk began in October 2021 with an 18-month deadline. Several new deadlines were set and missed.
KMC engineers and officials said multiple challenges had to be overcome.
“We had to shift a brick box-drain, high tension electricity lines and three water supply lines. Their shifting on such a cluttered and busy road took time. A redundant gas supply line had to be removed, too.”
“There were severe restrictions on when we could work. We had to stop our work every year for 15 days around Poila Boishakh, during the Gangasagar Mela and again between Durga Puja and Kali Puja because of the rush of devotees. Restricted work could be done on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and also during monsoon,” an engineer said.