Ranchi: Regular traffic jams on the road from Booty More leading to BIT-Mesra are expected to end in coming months, now that work has begun on a project to widen the road and build a new bridge across Jumar river.

Officials belonging to the State Highways Authority of Jharkhand (SHAJ) hope that if all goes well, commuters passing through the area that is part of the Ranchi-Ramgarh-Hazaribagh stretch of NH-33 would have easier access by February 2018.

"The ongoing work is part of a 22km road widening project between Vikas Vidyalaya and Rampur (near Namkum) towards the Ranchi-Tata stretch of NH-33," explained a highway official.

"We have completed a major part of it but work suffered on a 1.5km stretch from BSNL office to Booty More. One of the major causes of the delays was inclusion of a new bridge from Manan Vidya School over Jumar river. However, the bridge is almost ready except approach roads from both ends. But work on them have been started," he said, adding that they had also begun work on widening the road connecting the new bridge.

State highway authority engineer (technical) Amrendra Kumar said the total cost of the 22km road widening project, including the new bridge, was around Rs 128 crore.

"If all goes well, both the widened road and the bridge will be ready in another two months," he said.

There are two bridges over Jumar river connecting Booty More to the BIT-Mesra area. However, Kumar said, once the new bridge was ready, the authorities would shut down one the two bridges.

"It is a very old bridge and has outlived its utility," Kumar said referring to the one that would be shut down. "Durability is an issue too. But once the new bridge is opened, traffic will be smooth and organised," he added.

That's because after widening, the road would be around 30 meters against the present 20 metre.

On the long-delayed Ranchi Ring Road project, Kumar said that of the total seven phases, six were being executed by the state highway authority, while the other one, from BIT to Namkum, was being handled by the national highway division.

"Five phases of the Ring Road are already complete while the sixth phase from BIT Kanke side is expected to get over by March 2018. But we do not know when national highway authorities would complete the remaining phase, which connects Ranchi to Jamshedpur. There are some issues with that stretch and Jharkhand High Court is monitoring the progress of work," he signed off.