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Patna,(BiharTimes): Ten years after its foundation was laid by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee the fate of the rail-cum-road Digha-Sonepur bridge literally hangs in the balance.
Media reports quoting railway sources attribute this to the inadequate allocation of funds in the current rail budget. |
The foundation of the rail bridge was laid on Feb 3, 2002 when Nitish Kumar was the railway minister. However, keeping in mind the poor condition of Mahatma Gandhi Setu his successor Lalu Yadav converted it into rail-cum-road bridge.
But after the taking over of Mamata Banerjee as the railway minister in May 2009 all the railways projects of Bihar got slowed down.
Now sources said that the railways may not complete the bridge by Dec 2014 as announced earlier if fund allocation continues to be meagre for this project in future.
ECR chief administrative officer G S Tiwari, was quoted in the media as saying: the Railways has sanctioned a sum of Rs 120 crore in the current fiscal for the bridge, which is inadequate to carry out work on the bridge in full swing. The ECR needs Rs 500 to Rs 600 crore to expedite bridge work on a priority basis. He said the Railways would, however, make all possible efforts to seek resources from the Planning Commission.
The railways has been carrying out fabrication and erection work on this ambitious bridge over the Ganga at Digha site in Patna. Out of 36 spans, fabrication work has been completed up to six spans. Fabrication work is, however, under progress with regard to span seven.
The whole project is likely to be completed at an estimated cost of about Rs 1,450 crore. But railway officials supervising the work at the site did not rule out possibility of cost escalation which could go up to Rs 2,400 crore.
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