RailEnquiry

New Delhi: As River Yamuna breached the danger mark yet again, threatening to submerge low-lying areas in New Delhi, railway officials on Monday said the old bridge is still safe, and added that rail traffic would not be halted.Divisional Railway Manager, Northern Railway (NR), A K Sachan, said that the bridge is safe for vehicular movement and a guard is deployed to check the water level.“The danger level in Yamuna River is 204 metres, at the moment; the water level is 204 metres. But there is another aspect, where scour depth is measured, where the sand washed away in the riverbed is measured. So, that level is 199 metres, but so far that level is 201 metres. So, we have a gap of 2 metres. So, we are still very safe. We have deployed a guard on the bridge and round the clock manning is being done and if anything goes wrong like scour level goes further down, then we will have to take the action and stop the traffic on the bridge,” said Sachan.Sachan further said that construction work of new bridge was delayed due to some problem posed by the Archaeological Survey of India and are trying to resolve the issue at the earliest. “Railway has taken up this work long back but due to some problem with the Archaeological Survey of India it was not completed. As they said that the work should not be executed in the buffer zone of some of the historical monuments. But we are trying to pursue the matter with ASI to give us the permission, as this is an important work to connect Delhi all the time, because every rainy season trains are stopped and people suffer lot of problems,” added Sachan. An alert has been sounded for officials as the Yamuna is flowing above its normal mark of 202.30 metres. According to media reports, about 47,000 cusecs of water was released upstream at Hathnikund barrage on Saturday. Also the water level of the flooded river rose steadily after the national capital received thunderstorm with heavy rains on Friday evening and Saturday morning. So far, a total of 307.8 mm of rain has been recorded in Delhi in the second lap of monsoons that began in the last week of June. —ANI