EM Bypass: The narrow width of the Bypass stretch between Silver Spring and the Metropolitan crossing has forced police to alternately stop Parama flyover and Bypass vehicles to minimise traffic chaos.

The width of the Ultadanga-bound flank reduces to less than half near the crossing and triggers snarls. Vehicles coming down the flyover and from Science City have to slow down and compete with each other to pass through the stretch resulting in a bottleneck.

The Bypass has been widened on either side barring the stretch where a proposed culvert parallel to the road has been stuck because of an electrictiy line along the road.

The 132KV CESC line has to be shifted to build the culvert, a Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority engineer said. "Talks are on with CESC regarding this," he said.

The CMDA is the custodian of the Bypass.

Mackintosh Burn has won the contract to build the new culvert, the engineer said.

The Ultadanga bound flank of the Bypass, along with the service road running parallel to it, is 26m wide. The bottleneck stretching between Silver Spring and the Metropolitan crossing is only 10.5m wide. "Only three small cars or a bus and a car can move simultaneously on the stretch," the engineer said.

A traffic police officer posted in the area said the culvert should be built at the earliest to avoid snarls on the Bypass.

Soon, work on the New Garia-Airport Metro will start and the situation will worsen, the officer said.

"The proposed Metro route is to the east of the Bypass bordering the fields. But it crosses over to the west near the Metropolitan crossing... so, traffic will turn more chaotic when Metro construction at this point starts and the culvert isn't ready."

The snarls often go beyond 100m and reach the next crossing, a person who travels daily on the stretch said.

"There are days when the snarls become unmanageable and we have to stop vehicles coming down the flyover and those moving along the Bypass in rotation," the traffic police officer said.

The move helps bring down the traffic volume on the stretch, he said.