ROURKELA: With an aim to reduce traffic congestion, it has been planned to build road over bridges (ROB) at STI and ITI level-crossings in the City.
The ROBs on the busy Howrah-Mumbai rail route of South Eastern Railway (SER) will come up at a combined cost of around `80 crore. But eviction of encroachment remains a major challenge for Rourkela administration to ensure timely completion of the projects. The projects are being implemented on 50:50 cost sharing by the State Government and SER.
Incidentally, three more RBOs in the City and one at Rajgangpur in Sundargarh district are also in the pipeline. About 145 passenger and goods trains ply on Howrah-Mumbai route.
After much delay, tender for ROB at STI level-crossing was finalised three months back and for the one at ITI level-crossing a month ago.
Rourkela-based PWD executive engineer Deepak Tripathy said each ROB would cost around `40 crore, including overheads. Confirmatory pile testing is underway and casting, capping and pillar erections are likely to be taken up within a month, he added.
Meanwhile, Rourkela city administration and SER have taken up preliminary eviction measures, including serving notices, and hope to clear encroachments in five months.
Rourkela Tehsildar PK Sahu said majority of areas required for ROBs are Government land and about 65 residential and commercial structures on Government land are to be removed. About 80 such structures would be cleared by SER.
Rourkela ADM K Sudershan Chakravorty said the administration is firm on timely completion of the two important infrastructure projects and there would be no laxity in removal of encroachment.
On completion, the two ROBs would pave the way for construction of three ROBs at Kalunga, IDC and Kukudagate level-crossings of Rourkela city and another ROB at Rajgangpur town.