The South Central Railway has agreed to hand over the century-old Havelock Bridge (in picture) to the Andhra Pradesh government.

The Arthur Elibank Havelock Bridge, which spans the Godavari, would be turned into a pedestrian pathway and serve as an added tourist attraction of Rajahmundry, which is being projected as a smart city.

SCR general manager Ravindra Gupta said the state government had agreed to pay Rs 18 crore towards renovating the bridge. The bridge was built by the British in 1897. Having served its full utility, it was decommissioned in 1997 and was replaced by the Godavari Arch, a bowstring-girder bridge built adjacent to the original bridge.

The Havelock Bridge was constructed with stone masonry and steel girders. It has 56 spans (each 150ft) and is 11,420ft long. The bridge served the busy Howrah-Chennai route until its decommissioning.

The Rajahmundry Municipal Corporation has already passed a resolution expressing willingness to take up the beautification project.

In 2012, the railways had decided to auction the bridge as scrap. The 2012 news raised a wave of protest by historians, academicians and non-government organisations along with political parties.

Local TDP MLA Gorantla Butchaiah Chowdhary and a former Congress MP, Vundavalli Arun Kumar, campaigned to get the bridge transferred to the state.

The bridge was named after Arthur Elibank Havelock, the then governor of Madras. It was built under the supervision of Frederick Thomas Granville Walton, who served as the chief engineer. Walton was assisted by executive engineers R.A. Delanougerede, F.D. Couchman and J.E. Eaglesome.

The bridge and the rail line had served as the lifeline of the British forces' movement to the eastern corridor of Dhaka, Burma and Indonesia during the two World Wars, said K. Satyanarayana, a former soldier.

"The bridge will now become a culture hub and a tourism spot on the Godavari, where we successfully conducted the Godavari Pushkaram this year with nearly three crore devotees," MLA Chowdhary said.