Construction material kept on the service road near DLF building. (Right) The cordoned-off area. (Mayukh Sengupta)

If you shudder at the thought of crossing the Major Arterial Road during rush hour, respite is on the way. The authorities have started building an underground pass in front of DLF building and will start work on another outside Eco Tourism Park shortly. And as a bonus, none of these roads will have to be dug up to build the subways.

At present the 12km MAR has one subway at the sixth rotary with eight entry and exit points. The passage connects five directions — that towards the airport, Rajarhat Road, Akankha complex, Salt Lake and Financial Hub. It was opened in October 2013 by state municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim.

Work on the new subway, outside DLF building in Action Area I, started in the first week of February and is expected to open before Durga puja this year. It is being built by Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco).

“Vehicular traffic on the MAR is very high and this makes crossing the road a risky affair. Many accidents have occurred there in the past,” said Debasish Sen, chairman cum managing director of Hidco. “Moreover Nazrul Tirtha is coming up at that junction. It will also draw a lot of visitors. A subway would eliminate chaos and ease the process of crossing over.”

The subway will be 59m long and 5m wide and open up before DLF building at one end and the upcoming steel building on the other. The subway would be constructed using a tunnel-boring machine that would not require the surface of the road to be dug up. Only the service roads are being dug up.

The news is music to the ears of residents and commuters of the area. “It is a nightmare crossing the MAR to reach the bus stop in front of the NKDA building. And after a long day in office, we’re too tired to walk a mile to the traffic light and cross the road there. A subway is just what we need,” said Tanushree Mohanty, an employee of a major telecom service near DLF building.

Debabrata Ghosh, a senior citizen living behind DLF building, balks at the thought of going to the DVC office at Ultadanga to collect his pension as it means crossing the dreaded road. “The last few months I am hiring a car to go to Ultadanga. But once the subway comes up, I shall cross over and use public transport again,” smiled Ghosh.

Another subway would be coming up near Eco Tourism Park. The authorities decided on this since there was a mad rush of visitors to the park on Saraswati puja and they had problems crossing over. So another 60m long subway would come up connecting Gate 2 of Eco Park to the bus stand in front of Financial Centre.

“We have noted that children and senior citizens top the list of visitors at Eco Tourism Park. For their benefit we shall install escalators in this subway,” said Sen. Construction would start before monsoon and the work should be completed within nine months.