The ring road, which will go a long way in easing traffic flow, will be a private project with the government playing a facilitator and the private partner constructing the road on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis. The state transport department has decided to open the bids on May 26. One of the potential bidders, the Bangkokbased Italian-Thai Development Public Company, called on transport minister Subhas Chakraborty on Tuesday.

The 42-km elevated ring road will begin from Salt Lake and touch Dum Dum airport. It will pass through Rajarhat, Chitpore, Bagbazar, B T Road, Tollygunge, Dhakuria, Alipore and end at Salt Lake. The road will have 11 intersections.

Chakraborty held a meeting with the representatives of the company at Writers' Buildings. At the end of the meeting, he said: "It was a courtesy call." But then, the construction company from Bangkok, whose principal activities are civil and infrastructure construction and development of buildings, industrial plants, pipelines and utility works, highways, railways, bridges and expressways, is an important bidder in the project.