Inauguration of railway bridge in WB sparks politics

New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) Politics was sparked off on Wednesday over the newly built four-lane railway overpass cable bridge in West Bengal's Bardhaman, considered India's second largest bridge, with its inauguration by a state Minister, despite a railways' announcement earlier that the bridge would be inaugurated by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on September 30.

The four-lane cable-stayed railway overbridge (RoB), which was completed as a 50:50 joint project by the Railway Ministry and the Trinamool Congress-led state government, was inagurated on Tuesday by state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee.

On September 23, Eastern Railway had in a notification said that the rail overbridge will be inaugurated by Goyal on September 30.

Following Goyal's sudden visit to US, however, the Railway Ministry reviewed its plans and has now announced that the Railway Minister will be available on video conference and the bridge will be inaugurated by Minister of State for Railways Suresh Angadi on September 27.

According to railway officials, the Bardhaman RoB was completed in 197 days without affecting traffic for even a day. Work on the 188.43 metre cable-stayed RoB started in 2012.

Besides 1.5 metre-wide footpaths on both sides parallel to the lanes, it has 27.7 metres of width to accommodate vehicles on four lanes. The railway officials said that the implementation of the bridge progressed over eight years in Bardhaman Junction, passing over the busy railway yards accommodating 10 tracks.

The officials also said the bridge construction encountered many issues along the way, including the restriction of the maximum height of the road surface clearances, and the busy movement of rolling stocks over the yard.

The RoB connects Bardhaman city with the two sub-divisions of Kalna and Katwa, and is on the Howrah-Bardhaman main line.