New Flyover

Ultadanga bypass flyover

Another feather is added in the Buddha’s Cap. Ultadanga bypass Flyover which connects VIP Road to EM Bypass and vice versa. Built in less than two years with cost of 68 crores. Its length is only 1.29Km but its use will be enormous especially during rainy season. Ultadanga was a nightmare for going to and coming from Airport during rainy season. Already there  was a short flyover for one way traffic from VIP road to EM Bypass which was also useful for the Salt Lake residents and those who were travelling through EM Bypass to other parts of the city. But being it one way, public was in trouble to move through congested Ultadanga crossings. Some how Government, this time felt its necessity and importance and acted quickly. The short flyover can be useful for  entering into Salt Lake  and also for taking the EM Bypass. But here one has to cross two to three traffic signals before coming to the point where the new flyover  touches the EM Bypass. Naturally this short Flyover will  now be useful for the Salt Lake residents only. Thanks to the Government for all out efforts to complete it in a very short time. The Flyover came to reality in a less than two years time and now we the Salt Lake residents, airport goers zoom to VIP Road using this Flyover and reach the destination bypassing  traffic congestion at Ultadanga crossings.

The flyover was thrown open to the public by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya on 05 January 2011.

Rath Yatra

Puri in Orissa, Kolkata and other places in West Bengal celebrated the Rath Yatra today. Thousands of Kolkatans came out on the streets to participate in Rath Yatra. Salt Lake too participated in the festival, like every year. The Rath (The Chariot) was pulled along the Broadway of this township. Many pulled the chariot of Lord Jagannath while the rest stood along the way to catch a glimpse of Lord Jagannath, Balaram and Subhadra. Traffic was stopped enroute Rath Yatra. Prasad was distributed to the people while moving the the Rath Yatra.

ISKCON, like every year, this year too organized Rath Yatra which started started from the Park Circus Maidan, went through the central Kolkata streets and journey ended at Ganga Sagar Mela ground nearBabughat. The Rath will be parked here till Ulta Rath, on the eighth day, when it will be back to the place of origin. Devotees of the ISKCON from different parts of the world participated in the festival.

Nicco Park

Nicco Park Salt Lake

One of the sight seeings of Kolkata is located at Salt Lake that is Nicco Park which is very close to Broadway Avenue now after connecting Salt Lake Sector III to Sector V where Nicco Park is situated, by a  small Bridge. The bridge is a small one, but it made the big differences for the commuters to Sector-V, especially employees of IT sectors and other offices and establishments like Nicco Park, Nalban, aquatica etc which are situated at the sector-V of Salt Lake City. This makes the journey more comfortable than the route through Karunamoyee. Now going to Newtown is much easier through this and the Wipro bridge, bypassing Karunamoyee.

 New Town as on 20 Jun 2010 (Road to Airport)

A tale of a city

 Adda at City Centre Mall

Ekti Shaharer katha (একটি শহরের কথা / A tale of a city) a documentary film on Salt Lake City (Bidhan Nagar) produced by Bidhannagar Municipality. The VCD of this documentary was released yesterday on 14 Apr 2010 by Soumitra Chattopadhyay at Purbashree theater at  EZCC Salt Lake.

On this occasion, Rabindrasangeet, dance & poem recital by Soumitra Chattopadhyay and Bratati Bandopadhyay  was organised by the organisers.  Shompa Kundu, Manomoy, Paromita (London) were among the artists of Rabindrasangeet. At the end the film was shown on the screen. Soumitra and soma Dey were in leading roles. 

The film was not upto the mark. The dialogues and photography was very poor. More over, like everything, the film also is one sided. This was a good attempt and the film could have been a good documentary of Salt lake but somehow it failed.

In the film, there is a mention of the tasty cutlets (Chop/ চপ) of Tank No. 11, but purposely omitted the "Indira Bhawan" where once Indira Gandhi stayed during one of the Congress session, if I am correct, in the seventies. To avoid that pronouncement of "Indira Bhawan" & Indira Gandhi - they mentioned "this is the place where India's No. 1 politician, Shri Jyoti Basu lives. Since it was a documentary film, they should have mentioned the history of that Indira Bhawan with details of why and when it was built and who all stayed there including Indira Gandhi, PM of INDIA. The writer, producer have given a flavour of  nasty & narrow politics here. I am not a political person or politically inclined to any party but my point is that when you are showing the statue (only Head) of Karl Marx and Sourabh's academy why a  Prime Minister  should be ignored? It has to be because its writer Bishwajiban Majummdar, Chairman, Bidhannagar Municipality belongs to a political party, where Indira Gandhi can be ignored but not jyoti Basu.

The film mentioned about the greenery of the city, but it is silent  about the destruction of the greenery by the Bill Board advertisers/ hording owners on the Broadway avenue of Salt Lake. More over the  Broadway Avenue of Salt Lake  has been defaced by the Bidhannagar Municipality  by  putting  lot many hoardings on Islands and on the both sides of the Avenue. Because of these hordings, there are lot of destruction of trees on the Broadway Avenue. The trunks on the ground are the proofs of the destruction carried out by the hording owners/ advertisers. Chairman said once, there are plenty of trees in Salt Lake, nothing goes wrong if some are eliminated. To bring up a tree, it takes years, but they are hacked in minutes, just to clear the sight of the hordings. in the film these aspect has not been discussed, because it is produced/ scripted by the Chairman himself. So it can not be  classified as a  documentary film of today's Salt Lake.

"Palash" on Broadway Avenue

Broadway Avenue, in the early morning