Easing The Bottleneck - Cuttack Road is all set for expansion and improvement to help tackle traffic congestion

Ask anyone which is the busiest and congested road in the city and the reply will be the road connecting Kalpana Square to Rasulgarh, commonly referred to as Cuttack Road.
“It takes me about an hour to reach Kalpana from Rasulgarh during rush hours,” said Pramod Biswal, a government employee who frequently commutes on the road. An hour for covering a five-km stretch is certainly not what the capital city denizens deserve, but traffic chaos is something which is quite common on this congested thoroughfare. Unrestrained growth in encroachments, water leakages from overflowing and dilapidated drains and continuous movement of heavy vehicles have been disreputed to be the main reasons for the traffic woes. “There are over 400 encroachments including four temples, a cable factory, two vegetable markets and numerous big and small garages,” pointed out an official of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation.
If these were not enough, two shopping malls are slated to be inaugurated soon near Laxmi Sagar along the road, compounding the misery of the commuters. Nobody knows for sure what kind of parking arrangement these malls have planned.
Believe it or not, this road (NH-203) that has been granted national highway status in 1999 has been neglected since then. “But now we are planning expansion,” said executive engineer, NH, Orissa division, Bijay Kumar Sahu. According to him, a sum of Rs 46 lakh would be spent in three phases on the construction of drains between Kalpana Square and Rasulgarh Square. National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) sources disclosed the road would comprise four-lanes after encroachments are removed and drain work is completed. “We need around 15 metres width to construct a four-lane road,” sources said. “The feasibility report is under preparation,” sources added.
The NHAI has also chalked out a plan to ease traffic pressure on this road by building by-passes connecting Samantrapur to Palasuni directly, so that all heavy vehicles can go through the road without disturbing the general traffic, an official said. Bhubaneswar mayor Mihir Mohanty, admitted that traffic on the road is a cause for concern. “We will surely take action on removing hindrances or resistance if the NHAI approaches us. We are also planning to install high-mast lights to help vehicular movement,” he assured.

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