A foot overbridge at the Exide More that was inaugurated on Saturday.
Another foot overbridge is being planned at the Rashbehari intersection to bring down pedestrian crossover at one of Kolkata’s busy intersections, senior officials of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation said after mayor Firhad Hakim inaugurated the one at the congested Exide More. “We have completed a preliminary survey for the Rashbehari crossing project and will draw up a report before deciding the technical aspects,” a senior official said.
The foot overbridge at the Exide More stands across Ashutosh Mukherjee Road and has two escalators with stairs. It was built in a public-private partnership, with Exide industries tasked with maintaining the structure against advertising rights.
Senior police officers said a foot overbridge at the Rashbehari intersection was among the 17 key intersections that they have identified for setting up similar structures to facilitate pedestrian crossovers. Officers said the list was drawn up after consultation with the officers in charge of traffic guards and taking into account pedestrian load.
The decision to build a foot overbridge at the Exide intersection was taken in 2019 after a police move to contain pedestrian movements with boom barriers had failed in 2018. The Exide crossing is vital for pedestrian movement with commuters pouring out of two gates of the Rabindra Sadan Metro station and crossing over the artery, officers said.
“We will be able to understand the impact of the foot overbridge at the Exide More within a week,” an officer said.
Puja cover: A special cover was released to mark the inscription of Durga Puja of Kolkata on Unesco’s list of intangible cultural heritage at the General Post Office on Saturday. The initiative was taken by the Forum for Durgotsab. In attendance were mayor Firhad Hakim, post master general SS Kujur, Goethe- Institut director Astrid Wege, scholar Tapati Guha Thakurta and forum representatives Partha Ghosh (extreme left) and Kajal Sarkar (extreme right).
Bank fire
A fire broke out on the ground floor of Eastern & North-East Frontier Railway Co-operative Bank, a five-storey building on Sashi Bhushan Dey Street, on Saturday. A fire tender doused it. Police said no one was injured.
Trial run
An old non-AC Metro rake ran between New Garia and Ruby (Hemanta Mukherjee) stations on Saturday afternoon, the first trial run for the first phase of the New Garia-Airport corridor.
The train, brought from the Noapara depot left New Garia around noon. It went to Ruby station and came back to New Garia, stopping at the stations in between. The maximum speed was 25kmph. The 5.4km New Garia-Ruby stretch is expected to see commercial runs by November-end. But even when commercial runs start, the stretch will see only one train completing one leg of the journey and then coming back. Two trains will not be able to run on the tracks at the same time because of the absence of an advanced signalling system.
