Patna: The long-awaited four-lane bridge on the river Ganga, adjacent to the reconstructed Mahatma Gandhi (MG) Setu, is set to the construction deadline. Construction of the bridge, on which work began in March 2021, was targetted to be complete by September 2024. However, the pace with which work on the project is going on, it is unlikely to be complete by 2025 as well.
With a view to reducing the load of traffic on only fully operational bridge for all types of vehicles in the capital city, the Union ministry of road transport and highways had approved the 14.50km long bridge along with approach road about 38 metres west of the MG Setu, considered the communication lifeline between north and south Bihar. The bridge is being built under the PM’s package to Bihar.
Also Read: Work on 6-lane bridge on Ganga, parallel to JP Setu, to start soon
Although, it has been nearly three years since the work on the bridge started, only 40% of the civil work could be finished so far. The construction company, SP Singla Constructions Pvt Ltd, which acquired headlines recently for the Aguwanighat-Sultanganj bridge collapse, has been awarded work at the cost of ₹1,794.37 crore and also to maintain it for ten years after its construction.
Officials of the state road construction (RCD), which is also supervising the work owing to its territorial jurisdiction, said that the MoRTH has recently pulled up the construction company for inordinate delay in execution of the project. “Work on all 47 pillars of the bridge has been almost complete, work on the rest four is on. About 450 segments out of the total 1868 such units have been uploaded on the pillars to place the extra dosed concrete spans on them. Each of the span has the length of about 215.13 metres. Approach road towards Hajipur side is not being built,” said the officer.
Also Read: Aguvanighat bridge on river Ganga in Bihar collapses, yet again
It is said that the RCD will rake up the delay issue with MoRTH, as it had allotted sufficient portion of land for building the approach road much ago. Since the additional land was available for building the approach roads on both sides, it did not require acquiring fresh land for the purpose.
