Dum Dum: VIP Road near airport's Gate No. 1 is getting widened to reduce traffic snarls and congestion at its crossing with Jessore Road.

Work on the Jessore Road-bound stretch has started and on Sunday, teams of workers, along with an earth mover, were seen dumping sand and stone chips to the left of the road.

A road roller levelled and brought it to the same level of the existing lane of VIP Road.

The six-lane VIP Road sees thousands of vehicles every day. People use the road to reach places like Madhyamgram and Barasat among others.

The spot where the road is being widened leads to a crossing that has traffic headed in three directions.

While cars and buses headed to the airport's slip road that leads to Jessore Road turn right from the crossing, traffic headed towards airport's Gate No. 2.5 and subsequently towards Madhyamgram have to move straight towards the traffic signal near airport's Gate No. 1.

Vehicles headed towards Nagerbazar use this stretch before turning left at the crossing of airport's Gate No.1, resulting in a bottleneck, especially during rush hour.

The Public Works Department that maintains the road has been doing minor repairs to cover potholes.

An officer of the airport traffic guard said police had requested the PWD to widen the road to help vehicles negotiate the stretch faster.

"The extra lanes will facilitate faster traffic movement in the area as they will be able to reach the airport Gate No.1 crossing faster," the officer said.

"The potholes, which would slow down vehicles, are being repaired."

Sahadeb Bose, 42, a resident of Madhyamgram who drives home daily after work through VIP Road, said it took him around 20 minutes to get to the airport Gate No. 1 crossing every evening.

"The speed of vehicles reduce to a crawl during rush hours and after 10pm when trucks ply down VIP Road," Bose said.

The lanes were demarcated earlier this month and work has been going on to make it motorable, a PWD official said.

"The lanes are being built at the same level of the existing road and it will be a metalled one," the PWD official said.

"We need at least a couple of days of clear weather for the mixture to settle properly. The road will be asphalted and levelled once we get clear skies," he said.

The lanes are expected to be ready for use in the next couple of days, the official said.