After much procrastination, Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) finally began erecting fences on Maa flyover to eliminated the dangerous Chinese ‘manjha’ or kite string causing injuries to commuters.

KMDA’s move has also brought in a subtle change in traffic diversions as Kolkata traffic police had in a notification closed the Maa flyover to traffic for the next 15 days from 11 pm to 5 am on Wednesday.

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According to the senior officers of the traffic department at Lalbazar, the traffic to Maa flyover will remain closed till 22 September, for which the regulation had come into force since yesterday, as the work on building “kite barriers” would be in progress during that time.

The menace of Chinese string-induced injuries were becoming an all-too-common threat on the Maa flyover since as many as 12 persons were reported to have been injured while driving on Maa Flyover in the last three months according to police estimate.

Despite measures by the Kolkata police to stem the accidents, there has hardly been any impact. The step to “fix wires” over both flanks of the Maa Flyover on the most vulnerable 900 metre-long stretch from Topsia crossing to the approach of 4 No. bridge had been taken, said a senior officer of the traffic department at Lalbazar.

According to police estimates, the long stretch between Parama Island and the 7- point crossing has become the most vulnerable zone with more than 90 per cent of accidents being reported from there.

However, according to police, this is not the first time that KMDA has been taking action. Earlier, the agency had erected wires consisting of vertical poles and three layers of horizontal wires on a 30 metre stretch of the flyover as a pilot project.

But this time the wires were being fixed based on the recommendations of the Kolkata police traffic department. A senior officer said, “We have recommended to the KMDA to make some modifications. Among them, we have requested them to cover the entire Maa Flyover stretch with such poles and wires. We also recommended that additional three layers of wires may be erected to cover the lower portion closer to the railing to stop any chance of riders falling over.