Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday inaugurated the construction work of Kachchi Dargah-Bidupur bridge across the Ganga in presence of RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his sons Tej Pratap and Tejaswi.
The 22.76km six-lane bridge is essential for road communication with north Bihar with Gandhi Setu requiring urgent makeover even in apparent absence of central funds. Asian Development Bank (ADB) is helping construct of the bridge. The Sonepur-Digha rail-cum-road bridge in Patna too has not been made functional yet because of delay in construction of approach roads.
The total cost of the project is Rs 4,988.40 crore in which ADB has given a loan of Rs 3,000 crore and the rest is being borne by the state government. For land acquisition and rehabilitation, Rs 696.60 crore is being spent. The project would be completed by February 2019.
This bridge - length of the main bridge is 9.76km with the approach road being 13km - would be parallel to Gandhi Setu and is being constructed by Korea-based Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd, which has formed a joint company with L&T India to undertake the construction. It is being built on the engineering procurement construction (EPC) mode. Under an EPC contract, the contractor designs the installation, procures necessary materials and builds the project, either directly or by subcontracting part of the work.
The EPC mode is preferable nowadays to ensure implementation of projects to specified standards with a fair degree of certainty relating to cost and time and with a view to enabling a transparent, fair and competitive rollout of projects. Under the EPC mode, funds are provided by the government and the agency, which takes up the work and is paid as per the work carried out by it.
The upcoming bridge will have its northern end near Bidupur in Vaishali district and southern end at Kachchi Dargah in Patna district.
On Sunday, Lalu reached the venue with his two sons by road, crossing the pontoon bridge, which connects Kachchi Dargah to Raghopur, the constituency of first-time MLA Tejaswi, who is also the road construction minister.
The programme venue was around 5km from the pontoon bridge and most of the houses had banners of deputy chief minister Tejaswi, thanking him for the bridge. Tejaswi was the first speaker and he thanked the people of Raghopur to vote him to the Assembly. It was also the first visit of Tejaswi after winning the election. "You must be thinking that why I did not visit Raghopur after winning the election. I did not want to come here empty-handed and wanted to give you something in return. This is the gift I have come with. This six-lane bridge would make your life comfortable. Through this bridge, employment would be generated and Raghopur would become second Patna," said Tejaswi.
Nitish reached the venue by chopper. Nitish took the credit of not taking any help from the Centre. "We have not taken a single paisa from the Centre for this project. Tejaswi jaisa naam hai, waisa kaam bi kar rahe hai (Like his name, Tejaswi is doing good work)."# Naresh Yadav (55), a resident of Raghopur, said: "During the rainy season, we are almost cut off from Patna and rest of the year, we have to depend on boats, which are quite dangerous. This bridge will make our life certainly better."
