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HYD: Proposal To Build A Parallel Bridge At Lakdi-ka-Pul |
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Traffic jams at the Lakdi-ka-pul bridge may become a thing of past with
the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) making a proposal to build a
parallel bridge at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore.
The parallel
bridge, to be 120 metre long and 10.5 metre (50 ft) wide with three lanes,
would begin at the Police Intelligence Office and extend up to Ayodhya
junction.
“The MCH will construct the bridge with its own money. A consultant will be
appointed soon to prepare designs and estimates,’’ MCH chief engineer R Dhan
Singh told ‘TOI’.
Some government and private property have to be acquired for constructing a
bridge parallel to the existing one.
Apart from the Intelligence Office land, the present Saifabad police station is
located on the proposed expansion site. The MCH would also have to acquire
three private property near Ayodhya junction. The Intelligence Office land is
vital as 86 metre of 120 metre bridge plan is part of it. “We have recently
written to the police department for their land as they need to give 1,800 sq
yards for the bridge,’’ an MCH additional commissioner said. Traffic snarls are
a perennial problem at the 27-ft bridge even during non-peak hours. The bridge
was constructed by the Railways about five decades ago. Over three lakh
vehicles pass through this bridge and it is one of the city’s busy roads. The bridge
connects areas like Red Hills, Mehdipatnam, Gachibowli, Masab Tank and Banjara
Hills. This is the only route for people to reach Niloufer Hospital
and the City Civil Courts from Secuderabad.
With increase in traffic flow and jams on the road, the traffic police had
turned it to one-way a decade ago. However, even this move failed to ease
traffic on the road.
Though the proposal of the new bridge was made a couple of years ago, it was
put in cold storage as the MCH wanted the railways to foot 50 per cent of the
project cost as being done in other road over bridges. But the railways
reportedly rejected the plea stating that as per policy they would not share
cost where their bridges existed.
The MCH’s engineering wing also proposed to merge the new bridge with the
existing one by removing footpaths which could give them another 12 ft.
However, the railways reportedly refused the proposal as technically it was not
feasible to remove them.
SOURCES:
Times Of India
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