Underpass between two HC buildings!

By our Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, May 6: The two buildings of the Gauhati High Court – the old building and the new one – are set to be connected underneath the road running between them. This is certainly a remarkable feat of engineering, at least in this part of India.
The work of an underpass – a tunnel passing under a road – connecting the old building of the Gauhati High Court standing erect near Latasil Playground and the new building near Hotel Brahmaputra Ashok has already been started by a Pune-based firm. The Rs 16-crore project, according to tender agreement, is stipulated to be completed within a year, sources said.
According to the specifications of the project undertaken by PWD (Building), the length of the underpass will be 30 metres and the diameter of the cylindrical tunnel to be put in place is to be of 3.6 metre diameter. There will be accelerator lifts at either end of the underpass connecting the two high court buildings.
In so far as engineering feats are concerned, in all likelihood the engineers involved in the job car capable of scripting a success story. What is about the administrative side? As often as not, many such ambitious projects in Assam are delayed for no fault of the engineers involved, leading to time and cost overruns. More often than not, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India traces such delays to wrong selection of contractor firms and negligence or lack of proper planning on the part of the departments concerned. Hope not, this ambitious project is stuck in a time warp.