22-Jan-2019: Shri Nitin Gadkari inaugurates bridge over River Ravi in J&K
Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Shri Nitin Gadkari inaugurated a 1210-meter span-bridge over the river Ravi in Kathua district in Jammu and Kashmir.
The bridge over Ravi at Keerian - Gandial will benefit over 2,20,000 people living on the two sides – Kathua in Jammu, and Pathankot in Punjab. It will reduce the distance between the two cities from 45 kms to 8.6 kms, which will save on both time and fuel cost. The Keerian - Gandial bridge has been constructed at a cost of Rs 158.84 crore to improve inter-state connectivity.
Giving a detail about the ongoing highways projects in Jammu and Kashmir Shri Gadkari said that the NH network in Jammu and Kashmir has seen an increase of 969 kms in the last four years. The total length of NHs in the State was 1695 kms in 2014, which has gone up to 2664 kms in 2018. Number of NHs has also gone up from seven to 14 in the same period. New NHs of 969 kms were announced during the period. In addition, four State roads of 400 kms have also been approved.
He said, his Ministry of Road Transport & Highways is executing 16 projects worth Rs 45,107 crore through NHAI, NHIDCL, State PWD and BRO under the Prime Minister’s special development package (PMDP) for J&K announced on 7th November 2015. Of these, works worth Rs 30,000 crore have already started. NHAI is executing eight projects worth Rs 14,987 crore, NHIDCL/BRO – six projects costing Rs 24120 crore, and PWD – two projects for Rs 6,000 crore.
Two major road corridors are being built in J&K– Jammu–Srinagar and Srinagar–Leh. The Chenani-Nashri tunnel road under the first is the largest highway tunnel in the country. It has resulted in reducing the travel time between Jammu and Srinagar by two and a half hours, while the distance between the two has come down by 30 kms. The tunnel is benefitting by way of making travel possible throughout the year and saving of upto Rs 27 lakh worth fuel on the route.
A 62-km long 4-lane ring road is being constructed in Srinagar city at a cost of Rs 1,860 crore. The road begins from Ganderbal on NH-44 and ends at Vayul on NH-1D. It will connect 54 villages in six districts. Also, about 25 per cent work on the 58.255 km 4-lane Jammu Ring Road has been completed. The total cost of this project is Rs 1,891 crore. The project involves construction of eight major bridges, 22 minor bridges, six flyovers, and two tunnels of 770 meters and 710 meters respectively.
Dr Jitendra Singh in his address said that the completion of various infrastructure project in the state was a manifestation of the slogan of ‘Sankalp Se Siddhi’ given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said that through the completion of the developmental projects in the state, J&K had become a part of the development journey of the Nation that is to continue in the years to come.
18-Jan-2019: Raksha Mantri Dedicates Diffo Bridge
Raksha Mantri Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated the 426.60 Metre long Pre Stressed Concrete Box Girder type bridge over Diffo river on Roing-Koron-Paya road in Arunachal Pradesh. Dedicating the bridge to the nation, the Raksha Mantri praised the commendable work being done by Project Udayak, Border Roads Organisation (BRO) in this region.
Smt. Sitharaman appreciated completion of this prestigious bridge which would provide uninterrupted access between Dibang valley and Lohit valley region of Eastern Arunachal Pradesh and an all-weather Road to the troops deployed on the China Border. Director General Border Roads Lt Gen Harpal Singh explained the rigours/hurdles faced by BRO in tough working conditions in an almost inhospitable terrain facing turbulent flash floods and also pointed out that the BRO has sacrificed numerous precious lives in discharging its duties across the length and breadth of country.
25-Jan-2019: Nitin Gadkari to Inaugurate Cable Stay Bridge over River Mandovi in Goa
Union Minister Shri Nitin Gadkari will inaugurate the newly built, 5.1 km long, four-lane, cable stayed bridge over river Mandovi in Goa on Sunday, the 27th of January.
The bridge will support and sustain burgeoning traffic in Panjim. It will facilitate routing of Mumbai bound traffic coming in from Bangalore via Ponda route and Old Goa towards NH-17, bypassing the main Panjim City. It will also help overcome the bottlenecks caused at Panaji KTC Circle, and Panaji Entrance as the same route is currently being used by local traffic as well as NH-17 Highway bound traffic. About 66,000 vehicles use this route every day, leading to hours of congestion, especially during the peak tourist season in Goa. The bridge will also be an aesthetically pleasing landmark for tourism development in the state of Goa.
1,00,000 m3 of high strength, high performance concrete, enough to fill 40 Olympic size swimming pools, was used for making this fully indigenously built bridge. Additionally, 13,000 MT of Corrosion Resistant Reinforcement Steel – the weight of 20,000 cars, 32000 square meter of Structural Steel Plates - enough to cover 6 soccer fields, 1800 km of High Tensile Pre-stressing Steel strands – equal to distance from Goa to Delhi, 265 Nos of Spherical Bridge Bearings, and 88 High Tensile Strength Cables in State-of-the-art Single Plane Harp type Cable Stay System equipped with real-time Force Monitoring technology were used for this 2,50,000 tons heavy bridge, which is equal to the weight of 570 Boeing-747 Jumbo jets.