 |
| A traffic snarl on Gandhi Setu. The renovation of the bridge will start only in 2013. Telegraph picture |
Patna, Jan. 31: Residents hoping for smooth traffic movement on the Gandhi Setu, the bridge that provides road connectivity between north Bihar and Patna, will have to wait for at least three more years.
The renovation work of this all-important bridge is not going to start before March 2013. Sharing this with The Telegraph, a source in the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said: “Tenders for selecting the agency to undertake the renovation work would be floated in May this year and the process would be completed by end September. Followed by this, the selected agency would be given six months for mobilising resources to start the actual work.”
He said that the selected agency would be given 30 months to complete the renovation work. According to the time frame given by the NHAI official, the renovation work of the bridge would not be complete before September 2015.
The western lane of the 5.575km-long bridge was opened for traffic in 1982 and the eastern lane was inaugurated in 1987. The need of repairing the bridge was first felt in 1991.
The repair work of the bridge has been done in bits and pieces, which has led to further deterioration of its condition. A team of experts headed by V.K. Raina, a renowned civil engineer, inspected the bridge in June 2010 and recommended complete renovation. The committee also said that all the 46 pillars of the bridge were in good shape and only the superstructure of the bridge had problems.
The fault in the superstructure forces closure of parts of the bridge for repair which leads to traffic snarls on a regular basis.
The NHAI has been entrusted with the task to select the agency for the renovation work and also to check the quality of work. As far as the nature of the rehabilitation work is concerned, its details would be decided on the basis of a report to be prepared by a Mumbai-based firm, which, at present, is conducting a study about the nature of problems plaguing the bridge.
NHAI in November last year had enlisted the services of the agency as consultant for conducting the survey. The agency is slated to submit its report in April this year.
“Apart from giving suggestions for rehabilitation of Gandhi Setu, the agency would also submit a feasibility report about the construction of a bridge parallel to the existing one,” said the NHAI officer.
The idea of constructing a parallel bridge was floated in July last year as a way to reduce load of vehicular pressure on Gandhi Setu.
Traffic on Gandhi Setu would not be blocked for even a single day during the course of the renovation work, the officer said. The maintenance of Gandhi Setu in the intervening period (till the selection of an agency for the renovation work) would be carried out by the state road construction department by using the funds provided by the Centre.