Title - Overbridge construction continues to drag

KANPUR: The work of construction of COD rail overbridge (ROB) is going on at a slow pace. This could be gauged from the fact that the foundation stone of the ROB on the COD railway crossing was laid on May 11, 2008 but it is still under construction. The bridge was scheduled to constructed in 30 months but even after four years, it has not been completed.If the construction would go at the same pace, it might take more than a year for the bridge to be completed. So far, only 25 per cent of the construction work has been done.The foundation stone of the bridge was laid by former minister of state for railways Naranbhai and former Union minister of state for road transport KH Munniyappa, in the presence of Shri Prakash Jaiswal on May 11, 2008.BJP MLA Satish Mahana said that the foundation stone of the ROB was laid just before the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and the ROB would be completed before the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 to gain political mileage. Mahana and activists of BJP reached the ROB on Saturday and protested against Union coal minister Shri Prakash Jaiswal for befooling the public.Meanwhile, the construction of bridge between Jajmau and Ramadevi is also going on. This bridge falls on Kanpur-Lucknow highway. It is expected that by June 30, 2013, the bridge would get completed. It is expected that by the end of the month, the service lanes from Harjinder Nagar to Ramadevi would also be constructed and opened for public.

Another ROB is under construction at Dada Nagar railway crossing since the past one year. This area faces traffic jams. The traffic movement on Dada Nagar bridge has not been suspended. Instead, vehicles move on the same bridge on one side and the ROB is being constructed on the other. As a result, jam occurs every now and then.

The traffic police department feels that the ROB at Dada Nagar is the only solution to get rid of traffic jams. But the pace of construction leaves no room to be optimistic.