The Kolkata Metropolitan Planning Committee (KMPC) has drawn up a Rs 220-crore plan to widen several roads in and around the city by 2011.

"Traffic volume in the city has increased manifold in the last few years and is set to rise further. If immediate steps are not taken then all roads will be choked," said a KMDA official.

KMDA is presently working on plans for widening the EM Bypass from Ultadanga to Rash Behari connector. While the two-lane stretch between these two points of the bypass will be widened to three lanes, two more lanes will be added to the four-lane stretch. PWD is working on widening BT Road in phases.

Several roads connecting the city to its suburbs, too, will be widened. These include the Barrackpore-Kalyani Expressway, Kona Expressway, the Shyambazar-Barasat stretch of Jessore Road, the Kidderpore-Joka stretch of Diamond Harbour Road (NH-117), the Sodepur-Barasat connector from BT Road to Jessore Road, Budge Budge Road and Howrah-Amta Road. Most of these connectors are either two or three-lane roads and will be widened to six lanes. The main arterial Road at Rajarhat would be widened to a ten-lane corridor.

Officials said the focus are on these roads as these connect the city to the rest of Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA).

"With second Vivekananda bridge set to open in a few days, road connectivity within KMA will improve. But it will raise the car-count in the city. Adding driving space in the city is thus imperative to overcome the increase in traffic pressure," said a senior KMDA official.