Speed Up Saraighat Work, Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) Told

GUWAHATI: The Kamrup district administration has asked the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) to expedite the ongoing repair work on the old Saraighat bridge over the Brahmaputra River to lessen people’s transport inconveniences.

Saraighat rail-cum-road Bridge, which was commissioned in 1963, handles a huge volume of road and rail traffic every day. The ongoing major repairing of the old Saraighat Bridge has resulted in massive traffic congestion with the new bridge failing to take the huge volume of road traffic alone.

The NR Railway had started executing a major repairing project for the old bridge at the cost of Rs 10 crore after the Assam Government issued a no-objection certificate. The repairing work was started on March 23 this year and the railway had set a three-month deadline to complete the project. But there are reports and allegations that repairing work is progressing in a slow manner in the last one month and only 20 per cent work has so far been completed. The NF Railway is also faced with the allegation of not engaging adequate number of labourers to expedite the repairing work.

Taking a serious note on slow progress of work by the NF Railway that resulted in people’s inconveniences, the Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup, Kamal Baishya on Friday held a review meeting. During the review meeting it was found that the Railways has so far completed only 20 per cent work.

Baishya told The Sentinel on Saturday that the administration is not happy with the progress of repair of the old Saraighat Bridge, and asked the NF Railway to immediately expedite the work. He said the NF Railway has been warned that the administration will not tolerate any delay in completion of the project. “The Railways must complete its project within the stipulated deadline of three months,” the DC said.

Baishya said the administration has banned plying of heavy vehicles over the new Saraighat Bridge from 8 am to 8 pm everyday to ease traffic congestion. He said the railway has been asked to install traffic dividers on the new bridge for better management of traffic.

On other hand, PRO of NF Railway Nripen Bhattacharyya told this newspaper that the Railways has already told the contractor to expedite the work. “If weather remains favourable, we are confident of completing the work within June. There was a shortage of labourers as many of them went to cast their cast votes to their respective Lok Sabha constituencies. On Saturday, contractors engaged more than 50 labourers and the number will increase from Monday,” Bhattacharyya said, adding that traffic congestion due to repair work cannot be handled by the railway. “Traffic management is a subject of the State,” he said.

As many as 80 identified deck slabs of the old Saraighat Bridge are going to be replaced. After completing the slab, an asphalt layer will be provided over the bridge after replacing all expansion joints. The NF Railway said although the steel girders of the bridge have been constantly maintained according to the schedule and works like steel painting and greasing of supports have been carried out, the road portion could not be adequately attended to because of the constant presence of large volume of road traffic.

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