Vivekananda Setu

Vivekananda Setu — formerly Willingdon Bridge or Bally Bridge — is the older of two pre-Independence bridges across the Hooghly in greater Kolkata. Opened in 1932 by Lord Willingdon, the Viceroy of India, the bridge carries both road and rail traffic between Bally on the Howrah side and Dakshineswar on the Kolkata side, just upstream of the Belur Math.

The bridge replaced an even earlier 1885 floating-pontoon road-rail crossing that had to be opened daily for river traffic and was prone to Hooghly flood damage. The Willingdon Bridge was renamed Vivekananda Setu in 1965 in honour of Swami Vivekananda, whose Belur Math headquarters lies adjacent to the bridge's east end.

The lower deck carries twin railway tracks operated by Eastern Railway; the upper deck carries two lanes of road traffic forming part of an inner Kolkata bypass. The central 110 m cantilever truss span is a steel through-truss riveted to the design standards of British practice in the 1920s.

A second cable-stayed Vivekananda Setu II (or Nivedita Setu) was opened in 2007 immediately downstream to relieve traffic on the original — the older bridge now operates with restricted load capacity. It remains one of three operational Hooghly road-rail crossings.