New road to take traffic from airport to city via Chinar Park

Kolkata: A new one-way road is coming up at Haldiram crossing on VIP Road to facilitate construction of the last two piers of the Orange Line on VIP Road — the last roadblock on this stretch of the New Garia-Airport corridor, officials said on Tuesday. The road will enable a traffic block that RVNL has been seeking for the past four years.The 175m-long, 9m-wide road — between VIP Road and Chinar Park — will be ready by next month, following which, Bidhannagar cops will give a 45-day traffic block to RVNL to allow them complete the portal piers P816 and P817 adjascent to Haldiram flyover.RVNLhas so far built one leg of each of the two two-legged portal piers .RVNL could not start work on the road below the flyover since cops had said they were unable to proceed because PWD, custodian of VIP Road, had been unwilling to hand over the green patch underneath Haldiram flyover where RVNL would build the one-way road. Now that the NoC has been granted, Afcons is building the new road. After the legs of the pillars are built, a pile cap, the main part of the pillar, will be constructed, followed by the pier cap. The viaduct will be placed on the pier caps. Officials said it should take three months to complete the two pillars.Afcons is building Orange Line's last 3.5km section from City Centre II in New Town to the airport. The mostly elevated tracks duck underground 850m before the airport and is joined by a ramp, coming up at Kaikhali.The pillars needed to be two-legged to accommodate the curve above Haldiram flyover. "Building the two pillars at Haldiram crossing, below which Biswa Bangla Sarani (New Town) meets VIP Road, is complex. Active cooperation from the state was needed," an official said."Work is on at a very fast pace. The new road between VIP Road and Chinar Park will be ready well before monsoon. A traffic trial will be conducted when the road is ready and then we shall shut the existing carriageway where two pillars are coming up. All vehicles will be diverted along this new road," said an officer. The Orange Line's last 3.5km section from City Centre II to the airport had missed several deadlines.