VIJAYAWADA: A year has gone by since the conceptual designs for the ‘iconic bridge’ proposed across River Krishna were submitted, but the State government is still dilly-dallying on finalising the design. Even as the tender process is going on, the officials said it would take ‘some more time’ to zero in on a design.
Even though Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has reviewed the proposed designs of the bridge on multiple occasions since March, 2017, when L&T Construction presented six designs, no consensus has been reached so far.
“The chief minister has liked a couple of the designs presented, and has asked us to come with improvements. It will take some more time before a final design is selected,” D Lakshmi Parthasarathy, Chairperson and Managing Director of Amaravati Development Corporation Ltd (ADCL), told TNIE.
It maybe recalled that the State government has planned for a 3.8-km long bridge across River Krishna to provide an alternative entry point to capital Amaravati from Vijayawada, besides Prakasam Barrage and Kanaka Durga Varadhi.
The proposed bridge connects Uddandarayunipalem in the capital region to Pavitra Sangamam in Ibrahimpatnam. The ADCL has recently revised the estimated cost of the project to `1,348 crore from the earlier estimation of `1,434 crore.
However, officials are hopeful the designs would be finalised in the next couple of months, so that the works can take off in the latter half of the year. Once the works of the project, which would be implemented under Engineering, Procurement, Construction (EPC) model, are launched, it is expected to be ready in one-and-a-half to two years. The CMD of ADCL has recently inspected the area in Uddandarayunipalem and Ibrahipatnam where the six-lane bridge would come up.
The making of Krishna district’s ‘iconic’ bridge
L&T Construction had presented 6 conceptual designs before the CM in March, 2017
The six designs were based on Kuchipudi dance form, Namaskara, Kondapalli toys, Arala Mudra, double-decker and Buddhist stupa
Few other firms like SP Singla and others have also presented conceptual designs
ADCL invited fresh tenders in March, 2018 after cancelling the previous one called in July, 2017
ADCL maintained that the earlier tender was scrapped as technical evaluation was not accurately done previously
ADCL has done a technical evaluation earlier this year, and revised the cost estimate of the bridge to J1,348 crore, which is J86 crore lesser than previous estimation