July 28: The state government today started a study to see if a proposed flyover between Lake Town and Bangur on VIP Road will come in the way of the plan to extend East West Metro till the Haldiram's outlet on the airport artery.

The government planned the Lake Town-Bangur flyover in May after a traffic survey had indicated that the 1km stretch was the only remaining bottleneck on the way to the airport.

There are two very busy intersections at Lake Town and Bangur that hundreds of vehicles and people pass through every hour, the survey had pointed out. A flyover was deemed the best way to decongest the crossings and the public works department was asked to build it.

The government today engaged Rites, an engineering consultancy company under the railways, to find out if the final alignment plan for the proposed extension of East West Metro from Sector V to Haldiram's allows construction of the flyover in the way it has been conceived.

Officials of the transport department and the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the implementing agency of East West Metro, met today to discuss the train network's extension to Haldiram's. They decided at the meeting that Rites and the PWD would exchange plans and decide the way forward.

"We have requested Rites to run a thorough check and see if any tweak would be needed in the flyover plan so that East West Metro's expansion is not affected. Once the agencies sit together with their respective drawings, we would have a clear idea whether anything is coming in the way of the proposed alignment of East West Metro," said a senior official of the transport department who attended the meeting.

Since May, the PWD has been drawing up a detailed plan for the flyover after conducting a feasibility study. According to sources, work on the flyover could start within months if clearance from Salt Lake police comes through.

Months before the flyover was proposed, Rites had drawn up a detailed route alignment plan for a 5.36km expansion of East West Metro from Sector V to Haldiram's.

The state government today engaged Rites to also find out whether East West Metro's maintenance depot at Howrah could be built on the plot where the Kona truck terminal is located, said a senior official.

The decision was taken during a discussion about extending East West Metro from Howrah Maidan to Santragachhi, for which Rites will conduct a study.

The truck terminal is spread over more than 71 acres off Kona Expressway under Calcutta Megacity Project. The truck terminal has not become popular in over a decade of its existence.