An underpass will be built at the Metropolitan intersection on EM Bypass to facilitate the east-west movement of vehicles, which is likely to be hindered by a pillar of the New Garia-airport Metro link that will come up in the middle of the crossing.
The underpass will allow vehicles headed south along the Bypass a free right turn at the Metropolitan crossing, urban development department officials said.
It also promises seamless movement of vehicles exiting the crossing on their way towards Garia.
The New Garia-airport Metro corridor runs along the eastern edge of the Bypass from New Garia. At the Metropolitan intersection, it will cross over to the other flank.
Senior engineers of Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), the executing agency of the project, said a pillar would come up in the middle of the intersection on the Bypass to support the viaduct.
Once the pillar comes up, officers of Kolkata police said, the north-south movement of vehicles along the Bypass will be hit to make way for vehicles moving to and from the Metropolitan intersection.
“A large number of vehicles use the intersection on their way to various destinations such as Tangra and Entally,” said a police officer.
“Once the pillar comes up, the movement of those vehicles will hamper the north-south movement along the Bypass. The underpass has been thought of to address the situation.”
Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) officials, who attended a meeting with Metro officials and the police on the proposed underpass on Tuesday, said the urban development department and the RVNL had on-principle agreed to share the cost of the project.
The estimated cost will be known once the detailed project report is ready.
“The RVNL has clarified it will not bear the cost of building the approach ways to the underpass,” a KMDA official said.
In February, the urban development department entrusted a team from IIT Kharagpur with drawing up a master plan for traffic management on the Bypass.
Members of the state government’s committee on infrastructure, headed by Samiran Sen, and a representative of the IIT attended Tuesday’s meeting.
“It has been decided that work on the underpass will start in December,” Sen said.
There is also a plan to build a foot overbridge to facilitate the movement of passengers between the proposed Barun Sengupta Metro station and the Spring Club-end.
