PWD plans another bridge over Yamuna

Keeping pace with growing population and rapidly increasing number of vehicles registered in the Capital, the public works department (PWD) is planning another bridge over the Yamuna. Atul Mathur reports.

Keeping pace with growing population and rapidly increasing number of vehicles registered in the Capital, the public works department (PWD) is planning another bridge over the Yamuna.

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The new bridge, said PWD officials, would be built upstream on the Yamuna, further north of Wazirabad bridge. Engineers said a consultant would soon be appointed to suggest the alignment of the bridge.

"We have asked the UTTIPEC to approve the terms of reference for the appointment of a consultant. Once approved, we will start the process to appoint the consultant," said PWD chief engineer (flyovers) Sarvagya Srivastava.

"The consultant would carry out a traffic survey and a feasibility study and would also fix the geometric of the bridge. The new bridge is being planned between Karawal Nagar in north east Delhi and Alipur in north Delhi and would come up several kilometres upstream of the Wazirabad bridge," said PWD officials.

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At present there are just eight road bridges on the 48-kilometre Yamuna — Wazriabad, Shastri Park, Old Bridge, Geeta Colony, ITO, Nizamuddin, DND and Kalindi Kunj. Two more bridges — one parallel to the Okhla Barrage and another as extension to the Barapullah elevated road —are in the planning stage.

If compared with international cities like London, Paris and Rome, Delhi fares poorly in terms of bridges.

While London has 34 bridges across the Thames, Paris has 32 major bridges and several minor bridges. Rome has 31 major bridges while cities like Bangkok, Budapest and Berlin have about a dozen bridges each.

"There is an urgent need to increase the number of bridges for better connectivity between areas on the two sides of the river," said an official.