After Singur, Salim gets going

Even as the dust over Singur is slowly settling down, the focus is set to turn to Salim Group’s proposed 4-lane 100 km Eastern Link Highway stretching from Barasat to Raichak and from there to Kukrahati on the other side of Hooghly river via a 4-lane bridge.

Since marine vessels coming from Sandheads at the confluence of Hooghly with Bay of Bengal to Kolkata port have to pass under the proposed bridge, one hopes to see another engineering marvel across the river in addition to the other pieces of pride, Vidyasagar Setu, Rabindra Setu and Vivekananda Setu – the last-named fast shaping up anew near Dakshineswar.

Coming to Salim Group’s ventures, today’s ET informs that their company, New Kolkata International Development Pvt Ltd (NKID) has already handed over the contract of designing consultant of the bridge project to a Danish company, COWI. It has also engaged a Canadian company, LASA to prepare detailed engineering report for the 100 km road project.

NKID’s total investment for infrastructure projects in Bengal is a whopping Rs.30,000 crore over next 15 years. It may be more if the scope of work gets bigger.

The Bengal government on its part has already initiated steps to acquire land for the road project, which will be around 2500 acres. With Singur almost irrevocably settled in favor of Tata Motors’ small car venture, it remains to be seen how the opposition fares in case of Salim Group’s road project.

Since more and more giant projects are coming to Bengal, does it mean the opposition will have to shuttle from place to place in order to ‘stand by the dispossessed‘. If so, won’t it be a tall order for them to keep up the tempo for years together? But then, you don’t know.