As many as four drowning deaths in five months, the last one on July 2, ever since construction work began on the Subernarekha bridge, have prompted the administration to decide on installing warning signs at danger points.
On Tuesday, Dhalbhum SDO Suraj Kumar issued a directive to Sanjay Kumar Singh, the executive engineer of the road construction department of Jamshedpur division, asking him to install warning signs at the construction site of Domuhani, the confluence of Subernarekha and Kharkai rivers.
"I had spoken to the executive engineer on Monday evening about construction of barricades. But, keeping in mind the possibility of water levels of Subernarekha and Kharkai rivers increasing, we decided that barricades could be submerged and, therefore, would not serve the purpose. Hence, we decided on put up signs on an elevated level using poles that can be easily noticed even with the rivers in spate," Kumar explained.
The SDO wants the road construction department to ensure that the signage are in place within a week, not only at the identified points, but also along Marine Drive near Swarna Vihar in Sonari and Dobo in Seraikela-Kharsawan where road work has begun.
"We have come to know that people, usually children, usually use these points to take a bath and the signage along roads, both at Marine Drive and at Dobo, will caution people against venturing into the river," said Kumar.
The Rs 41-crore bridge over Subernarekha, which links Sonari in Jamshedpur with Dobo village in neighbouring Seraikela-Kharsawan district, is being built by Calcutta-based construction agency Royal Infratech. Chief minister Raghubar Das laid the foundation stone on March 13.
Once commissioned, hopefully by December 2017, the bridge will reduce travel time from Jamshedpur to Ranchi by nearly 40 minutes. It will also relieve steel city roads of heavy vehicle traffic and, therefore, reduce congestion.
The depth of the river at Domuhani is around 12 feet and officials of Royal Infratech said they had used earth to stem the flow of water in the area. They claimed they had put sings too, but that those had been washed away.
"We will install signage on a more firm pole this time," said engineer at the site.
