Come August, the construction of the six-lane bridge over the Ganga - parallel to the Gandhi Setu - would start.
The upcoming bridge would have its northern end near Bidupur in Vaishali district. Its southern end would be at Kachchi Dargah in Patna district.
The new bridge would be a great respite for the commuters going to north Bihar from Patna. At present, they have to take the ever-congested Gandhi Setu.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) had earlier agreed upon providing loan for the construction of the 20-km-long new bridge. The project has reached the pre-bidding stage now. Of the 20-km-long bridge, 9.76km would be over the Ganga.
Road construction minister Rajeev Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh on Friday said: "The construction of the Kachchi Dargah-Bidupur six-lane bridge over river Ganga, parallel to the Gandhi Setu, would start in August this year. The project cost would be Rs 5,000 crore, of which Rs 3,000 crore would be provided by ADB. The state government would chip in with rest of the amount."
Principal secretary of the road construction department Arun Kumar Singh said the bridge construction would be completed in four years.
At present, Gandhi Setu is the only lifeline between the city and north Bihar.
After several steps to decongest it proved futile, the city traffic police have embarked upon lane drive on its approach roads to streamline the traffic on the Setu.
The new bridge, to be constructed in public-private partnership mode, would significantly ease the traffic pressure on the existing bridge.
The state road construction department had earlier approached ADB for loan after the department of economic affairs, Government of India, issued no-objection certificate to the state government for the new bridge.
Recently, the Centre had asked the state government to hand over the project to it so that the bridge could be constructed with 100 per cent central finance.
In-response to the central directive, the state road construction wrote a letter to the Centre giving two suggestions. First, to bear entire amount of the state's share.
Second, to give Rs 1,000 crore and take up the project jointly with the state. But the Centre refused to buy the suggestions, prompting the state government to take up the project on its own.
"There is no role of the Centre in this project. We will complete the bridge with our own resources, let the Centre do politics over it," said Lallan.
Four joint venture construction companies have reached the project's pre-bid stage. They are L&T and Daewoo, HCL and Hyundai Engineering, China Railway First Group Company Ltd-SP Singla and China Railway Construction Corporation. The lone single firm to meet the parameters of the project is China Harbour Engineering Company.
At present, ADB is going through the past records of the five firms. It will give its final verdict on them and on June 20, following which the tender for the project would be floated.
The new bridge would be a boon for the commuters for sure because the existing Gandhi Setu keeps on developing snags. Often, parts of it remain closed for vehicular movement for maintenance work, triggering long queues of vehicles. The road of the existing bridge is not wide enough either to cope with the ever-increasing vehicular pressure.
Of the 20-km-long six-lane new bridge, 8.5km on the southern side would be connecting Bakhtiyarpur (Bidupur) and 1.5km of it would link Kachchi Dargah on the northern side.
