Much to the respite of city residents, who have been awaiting completion of the Jagraon Bridge repair work for four years, the railway authorities on Saturday started paving the road surface.
The municipal corporation (MC) had handed over the construction work to the railways after building a retaining wall, following which the railways filled the approach slabs in the first week of September.
Railways’ contractor Gurdeep Singh said the base surface was laid on Saturday, and the process of laying the top layers will be completed in four days.
Mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu last week had announced that the project will be completed by Gandhi Jayanti on October 2.
The railways is expected to take another week to complete the construction of the damaged bridge, following which MC will complete work on the approach road.
Conceived in 2016, the project to repair a damaged portion of the bridge (which leads to Bharat Nagar Chowk) stayed in limbo for two years as the railways refused to pool in money for it.
After MC handed over Rs 24.3 crore to the railways, construction finally began in 2018, with a deadline of June 30, 2019. But since then, it missed four deadlines – December 2019, March 2020, June, August 15 and September 15.
{{/usCountry}}After MC handed over Rs 24.3 crore to the railways, construction finally began in 2018, with a deadline of June 30, 2019. But since then, it missed four deadlines – December 2019, March 2020, June, August 15 and September 15.
{{/usCountry}}This year, the project was mostly delayed due to the closure of bitumen plants amid the Covid-19 lockdown.