West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday inaugurated a skywalk at the famous Dakshineswar temple on the northern fringes of Kolkata, a move aimed at reducing congestion on the roads leading to the 19th-century shrine.
“The Dakshineswar temple is an international site for religious tourism. Whenever I came to the temple, I found the roads very congested,” Ms. Banerjee said after inaugurating the bridge, recalling the initial opposition to the project and how it took years for construction of the structure and how the matter at one point had reached the Calcutta High Court.
Constructed by the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, the skywalk, named after Rani Rashmoni, who had built the temple in 1847, is 340 metres long and 10 metres wide. There are 14 escalators and four elevators to the skywalk, making the access of pedestrians to the temple much easier. The Chief Minister assured hawkers, who feared loss of livelihood, that they will be allocated shops on the skywalk.
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“All the 137 shops on the skywalk will be given to the hawkers but you will have to promise to keep it clean,” Ms. Banerjee said. She also announced that the KMDA had been asked to consider a similar skywalk at the busy Kalighat temple. “I want to assure you that like Dakshineswar, no shopkeeper will be affected at Kalighat temple too,” she said.
She added that the State government had plans for a light and sound show at the Dakshineswar temple, highlighting the history of the place, and added that a tender had been floated for the same.