Kolkata: New Tala bridge worth Rs 468 crore to be thrown open to public today

Kolkata: The load-testing report was validated by IIT-Kharagpur, and Eastern Railway then issued the restored Tala bridge its safety certificate. On Thursday, the bridge is scheduled to open to traffic.

With the appropriate clearances in place, both light and heavy freight vehicles are now able to use the new bridge's 385-ton load limit. But up to the end of the puja, only light cars will be allowed to drive, in accordance with the police's plan for controlling traffic.

A 240m portion of the 750m-long road overpass under Eastern Railway that spans the Tala railroad tracks. At 5.30 p.m. on Thursday, the new bridge will be officially opened by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, 29 months after the previous one was destroyed in April 2020.

Heavy goods vehicles will, for the time being, continue to be detoured through Cossipore Road, which runs parallel to BT Road, before meeting it at Dunlop More, just as they did during the reconstruction of the bridge, because the police do not want to disrupt the current traffic arrangement before and during the puja.

The relief of commuters seeing the end of their daily journey tribulations through the complicated routes is palpable. "I believe the new bridge will be an icon in north Kolkata," said Dunlop resident Subhranghshu Saha, a retired civil engineer from CPWD, who has to travel to Shyambazar.

"Traffic diversions for heavy goods vehicles will continue till the pujas are over as police don't want to take risks when huge crowds of pandal-hoppers hit the streets," said an official of PWD, the implementing agency of the Rs 468-crore Tala ROB reconstruction project. The department has the railway's permission to use the temporary level-crossing near the Chitpore lockgate flyover for diversions till November after which the level-crossing will be demolished.