BHUBANESWAR: With the ground work of the metro rail project beginning to pick momentum, the city coordination committee in charge of the mass rapid transit system execution has devised a traffic management plan to minimise public inconvenience due to the constructions.
The committee comprising officials from all agencies concerned has decided that the construction work will be taken up during night - between 10-11 pm and 6 am - to ensure the vehicular movement on the busiest routes along which the metro corridor will pass is not affected.
The Bhubaneswar Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) has started preliminary work on the elevated corridor in the 26-km-long stretch between Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) in Bhubaneswar to Trisulia in Cuttack.
An official from the BMRCL said the project work will be taken up on 1 km stretch at a time with proper barricading to execute it efficiently without causing any risk or undue hardship to commuters.
The traffic management plan also includes widening of roads. The stretch where construction is taken up will be widened for smooth movement of vehicles and preventing gridlock in high-traffic areas. This is extremely important as the metro route covers key areas such as Airport, Capital hospital, Sishu Bhawan, Master Canteen, Vani Vihar, Acharya Vihar, Jaydev Vihar, KIIT square and Nandankanan, the official said.
The average daily motorised passenger traffic in the stretch, as surveyed by the state government, is in the range of 61,299 to 1.97 lakh. Rail Sadan stretch of Jayadev Vihar-Nandankanan road has a daily traffic of a staggering 1,97,600. The figure is also more than 1.70 lakh for Vani Vihar.
A senior official said the BMRCL will maintain close coordination with the Commissionerate police and other stakeholders to ensure less inconvenience to commuters during the construction work of the project.
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), engaged as the turnkey consultant for execution of the project, has already awarded the 7.12 km Capital Hospital-Acharya Vihar Square stretch and 7.27 km Acharya Square-KIIT Square stretch to Ranjit Buildcon Ltd.
The 10.97 km stretch from KIIT Square to Trisulia Square has been awarded to Ceigall India Ltd. The soil testing work is in progress on these stretches.