The Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) would be taking up the construction of a second flyover at Baghajatin for faster movement of traffic along the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass. The project is a part of the agency's move to add to the speed of vehicles particularly those bound for airport from south Kolkata and the southern suburbs. The project was signaled off by the state urban development minister Mr Asok Bhattacharya last week. The KMDA traffic and transportation section would supervise the work. The work is expected to be completed within 18 months.

In an effort to propagate the message that polio drops should be administered to all babies, members of Rotary International today took Mr Gautham Lewis, a victim of polio and an ambassador of the organisation and made a door-to-door polio eradication campaign in parts of Nonadanga, Metiabruz, and Topsia today.

The city may breathe easier ~ and look prettier ~ if the Kolkata Municipal Corporation's decision to remove billboards from in front of parks and water-bodies comes into effect. The decision has been taken to keep the city's greenery free from "visual pollution". The civic body's advertisement department will not renew leases or allot new slots for billboards in front of parks or water-bodies.

In order to ease the parking chaos in Kolkata, the state government needs to work on concrete plans to have more parking plazas in the city, state public works department minister, Mr Kshiti Goswami said in the Assembly today.

SOUMEN BHATTACHARJEE Street food has always been scrumptious. It will now be safe, too. The central government has chosen Bidhannagar Municipality to implement the first Safe Street Food programme in Bengal, with the focus on setting up vending zones where any hawker can do business as long as the food is hygienic. That could mean the neighbourhood puchkawalla having to use gloves and switch to mineral water, and the chicken, mutton and egg roll vendor using branded sauces instead of the toxic-looking ketchup customers are used to.

Calcutta and most of eastern India will be witness to the spectacle of Mars and Saturn nudging each other, with a crescent moon watching over them, this weekend. This rare conjunction after sunset on July 6 will be topped by Regulus (Megha), the brightest star in the Leo constellation, making an appearance in the same patch of the western sky. After dusk on July 10, Mars and Saturn will be just 0.38 degrees apart, which is the closest they'll get until 2022. According to astronomers, the two planets were last seen near each other

KOLKATA : The Kolkata Municipal Corporation's (KMC) dream to turn the city green seems to have gone sour. For the initial interest shown by the civic body in the project has waned as it is unable to fix a date to flag off this year's plantation drive. Previously, KMC on the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June, would start their plantation drive under the name of Kolkata Sabujayan (Green Kolkata). "No specific date has yet been fixed for starting the plantation drive. However, some erratic campaigns are being undertaken,' a civic official, said.

Burrabazar's biggest problem is space, rather the lack of it. Lack of planning and the mushrooming of illegal buildings have led to road space in the commercial hub shrinking with each passing year. The problem has been compounded by vehicles being parked illegally, choking all the arteries.

A thick cover of rain clouds hung over the city on Monday afternoon. The Met office warned of isolated heavy rain in Calcutta and the rest of south Bengal in the next 48 hours. The monsoon current has become strong over Gangetic Bengal following the development of two cyclonic circulations.

The suspected outbreak of enteric in ward 129 of Behala has highlighted the lack of financial control over tax-payers money. For mayor, Mr Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, today alleged local councillors have spent almost Rs 2 crore, allocated specifically for building a new canal in the area, on other purposes. Last Saturday, a meeting of civic officials held in the office of borough 13 and 14 had revealed the irregularity.