A prod from Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spurred the state government into trying to overcome the hurdles that have slowed down the ambitious Sonepur-Digha rail-cum-road bridge which will connect Patna with north Bihar.
The construction work, which started in 2002, is already delayed by eight years as the project was supposed to be completed in 2007 itself.
The delay in construction of the approach road spells bad news for commuters as their existing option of Gandhi Setu, the bridge across the river Ganga, is nothing but a nightmare due to its dilapidated condition, which leads to frequent traffic snarls.
However, the state government has now shown the urgency in the project after the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who directed the chief secretary to sort out the problem related to the approach road.
The most important hurdle facing the project pertains to the problems in acquiring land for constructing the approach road. Three hundred acres of land has to be acquired for building approach roads on both sides of the bridge.
As things stand now, the major problem lies on the Sonepur side. The government has decided to seek help from the railways and get them to offer their land at Sonepur for the 5-km approach road. During the maiden video-conferencing with Bihar chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, Prime Minister Modi had said that the process of land acquisition be expedited to pave the way for completion of the mega-project. He had said delays in such infrastructure projects often lead to an increase in the estimated cost.
National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) was involved in construction of the approach road, but its contract was terminated midway. Later, road construction minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh, better known as Lalan Singh, wrote to the Centre and blamed NHAI for not taking up the construction of the approach road.
Now, the state government has decided to take up the work on its own to expedite the project. The railways has almost completed their work and would make train traffic operational by July this year. A source in the road construction department said railway minister Suresh Prabhu will meet Lalan Singh on April 9.
#A senior BSRDC official, who requested anonymity, said: "We have decided to complete the work on urgent basis. Some issues remain like acquiring land apart from illegal encroachments on the Digha side. A total of Rs 196 crore would be spent on the approach road, including the compensation of the land."
The approach road on the Sonepur side will cost Rs 130 crore.
A senior official in the road construction department told The Telegraph: "To complete the project on time, we have divided the work of approach road between the Bihar State Road Development Corporation (BSRDC) and Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam Ltd (BRPNN). BSRDC will construct the 12-km approach road on the south, that is Patna side, and BRPNN would construct the road on the north, that is Sonepur. Both are wings of our department and work on the Patna side has already begun."
A railway official said: "Work on all 36 spans have been completed over the main bridge. By July, train service would start on the bridge. It is now up to the state government to complete the approach road."
