Two defunct water conduits under EM Bypass are being converted into pedestrian underpasses — one near Science City and another near the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute.
Both are expected to be ready by February 2026 or ahead of the school board exams.
The Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), the agency implementing the project, says the underpasses are urgently needed as both pedestrian and vehicular traffic on the Bypass continues to grow. Once the Science City underpass opens, one on-road pedestrian crossing will be closed. The more precise location of this underpass is Uttar Panchannagram, near Ambedkar Bridge.
Converting defunct conduits is proving far more economical than building new infrastructure. Each conversion costs ₹2 crore, compared to ₹14 crore for the new underpasses built at Hyatt and Beleghata.
“They cost much less than making a new underpass,” a KMDA official said. “When we built new underpasses at Hyatt and Beleghata, each cost about ₹14 crore. But we will spend ₹2 crore for each of the new ones.”
Foot overbridges, the alternative for pedestrian crossings, have largely failed across Calcutta. Finding space to build them is difficult, and their construction obstructs daily traffic, leading to delays, officials said.
Metro had reported on a similar conduit conversion at Kalikapur in July 2023.
These defunct conduits tell the story of Calcutta’s rapid urbanisation. When EM Bypass was built in phases from the 1970s, dozens of water bodies and acres of marshy land flanked both sides of the road, acting as natural reservoirs during the monsoon.
“The conduits under Bypass were made to ensure that water from a water body on one side could mix with water on the other side,” a KMDA official said. “The objective was to ensure parity in water levels and prevent one side from flooding significantly more than the other.”
As demand for housing along EM Bypass grew, these water bodies and vacant plots were filled and built over. Today, apartment complexes, shopping centres, hospitals, schools and houses occupy what was once a wetland. The indiscriminate filling of water bodies has been blamed for frequent waterlogging in neighbourhoods along the Bypass.
“No water now flows through the conduits, and they have been out of use for years,” the official said. “We decided to convert them into underpasses to reutilise them.”
Time will tell whether the underpasses succeed where other pedestrian infrastructure has failed. Calcuttans have historically been reluctant to take stairs or make extra effort to use dedicated crossings, preferring to cross at road level despite the risks.
Neither underpass will have escalators — at least not initially. Pedestrians will need to descend 30 steps into the underpass and climb another 30 steps to reach the road on the other side.
KMDA officials say escalators could be added later if there’s demand, but they want to avoid the recurring maintenance cost upfront. Each escalator costs approximately ₹12 lakh per year to maintain.
“If we see there is a demand for escalators, they can be installed later after the underpasses become operational,” an official said.
To many, this sounds like short-sighted planning. Finishing the complete job at one go would seem the better approach, rather than risking low usage due to inconvenience and then retrofitting escalators later at additional cost.
The success of these underpasses will ultimately depend on whether they’re convenient enough for daily use — a test that similar infrastructure has often failed in Indian cities.