Title - Mankapur railway overbridge set to get a push

NAGPUR: The work on Mankapur railway overbridge on national highway number 69 will be expedited after National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) agreed to submit structural design by December end. The decision was taken in a joint meeting convened on Tuesday.NH 69 leading to Chhindwara faces problems due to railway crossing through which over 200 trains bound for Delhi and Chennai pass everyday.As barricades are put up, the traffic is severely affected at regular intervals and leads to long queues of vehicles on both sides. Sometimes it takes a few hours to open the gates. In fact, the RoB was sanctioned long back "but not even a single brick has been laid".Even the high court has taken a serious cognizance of delay in construction of RoB and directed both NHAI and railways to coordinate with each other to expedite work. Subsequently, the Central Railway on Tuesday convened a meeting with NHAI officials.Issues pertaining to construction of three RoBs - Mankapur, Godhani and Chinchoda - were discussed in the meet which was attended by divisional railway manager Brijesh Dixit, general manager (NHAI) U M Shambarkar and other senior officials of both the government agencies.NHAI has also agreed to deposit codal charges (money deposited towards any damage) of Rs3.39 crore for Mankapur RoB, Rs1.96 crore for Godhani RoB and Rs2.40 crore for Chichonda RoB.

About Mankapur RoB, NHAI also claimed that the new approach road will be completed by January 5, 2013. NHAI officials were asked to deposit Rs1.83 crore for shifting and erection of new level crossing at Mankapur level crossing. It was also decided to convene a review meeting every 15 days.