Title - 65 yrs after proposal, century-old bridge to be separated

A 118-year-old single rail and road bridge at Lohian constituency in Jalandhar district, may finally be separated by the end of this month, some 65 years after a proposal to build a separate bridge for road traffic had received approval. The SAD-BJP government had tried to complete the road bridge, near Gidderpindi’s single railway and road traffic bridge, before the 2012 state Assembly polls but the new bridge will only be ready by the end of the month. Till now, rail and road traffic have been passing over the same bridge since the British Raj but the bridge is closed to vehicles at night to allow trains to pass unhindered.Though the foundation stone for the separate 721 metre long road bridge was laid here in February 2009 and the dead line was June 2010, the project was delayed after the previous company left it, forcing the government to hand over the project to another company under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) system. The present SAD-BJP government has been claiming that the work would be completed by the end of this month. The cost of the bridge will be around Rs 41 crore.The new road bridge should bring relief to the residents of the area. For over a century, people have been using the railway bridge for road transport and have been demanding a separate road bridge but no government paid any heed till 2007. The rail-road bridge is closed for road traffic every evening till 8 am in the morning. Even during the day, it is only open to vehicular traffic for only five to six hours due to passing trains using the same bridge. Further only vehicles with pneumatic tyres (tyres made of rubber and filled with air) are allowed on the bridge and hence bullock carts were banned.The bridge is the main link between Jalandhar and Ferozpur but in the absence of any separate road bridge, residents say they have to travel an extra 50 kilometres if they wanted to travel to Ferozepur from Jalandhar at night. Sarpanch Baljeet Singh of Gidderpindi village says that residents of the area are very happy that this long pending demand is about to be fulfilled.Businessmen in the area are a relieved lot as well. They point out that so far their visits to Malwa cost a lot of money and wasted time. They believe that the new bridge will provide a fillip to their businesses as well.