RAJAHMUNDRY: With all the hurdles in its execution cleared, the long-pending road bridge on river Godavari between Diwanchervu and Kovvur will be completed and thrown open to vehicular traffic in May this year - well ahead of the ‘Godavari Maha Pushkaralu’ (GMP), scheduled to be conducted in July this year, according to sources.
Disclosing this to Express here on Saturday, they said that the officials concerned were mounting pressure on Gammon India Limited (GIL), the company executing the project, to expedite the construction of the `850-cr bridge. They added that chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu was keen that all the GMP-related projects/works, including this bridge, should be completed by June-end.
The sources recalled that the bridge, for which the foundation was laid by the late CM YS Rajasekhara Reddy in 2009, was to be completed in 2012. However, the GIL had been delaying the works citing various reasons such as land acquisition problems, lack of sand, etc., they said and added that the issue relating to 41 cents of Endowment land on the Kovvur side had been settled, paving the way for laying the approach road on that side.
They further said that the AP State Road Development Corporation had taken necessary steps for the protection of the irrigation department’s pipelines on the approach roads.
The sources explained that the total length of the bridge would be 6 km and that it would have a 8-km-long approach road on the Rajahmundry side and 1-km-long approach road on the Kovvur side.
The new bridge would cut the distance between Chennai and Kolkata by 50 km and also vastly reduce the traffic burden on the existing rail-cum-road bridge between Rajahmundry and Eluru.