Salt Lake: The steel-mortar footbridge connecting Salt Lake with VIP Road over the Kestopur canal will be replaced with a concrete structure.

Till the new structure is ready, pedestrians can use a makeshift bamboo footbridge to commute between the township and the arterial road.

On the Salt Lake side, the makeshift bridge starts from a point close to the forest department's Wildlife Rescue Centre in AE block. It meets VIP Road at Dum Dum Park.

"The bridge has bamboo railings on both sides. Two persons can walk abreast through the bridge," said an official in the irrigation and waterways department, which is in charge of the project. "The bridge will be thrown open to commuters once work on pulling down the old structure starts."

The steel-mortar walkway - 100m in length and around 12ft in width - is more than 30 years old."Work on demolishing the structure is expected to start within two weeks," an official said.

Irrigation and waterways minister Rajib Banerjee said the concrete bridge would be much wider and stronger than the existing one.

"The design has been finalised. The bridge will be made of concrete and steel. The structure will rest on reinforced concrete pillars at both ends," Banerjee said.

Several more footbridges connect the township with VIP Road. "All the bridges will be subjected to fitness tests in phases, to be conducted by our engineers. We want to repair all the footbridges by the middle of this year," he said.

Somnath Chakraborty, 52, a resident of AE block, said the steel bridge would "shake and sway" whenever people in groups crossed it.