After a five year delay, Ram Jhula finally ready

NAGPUR: After a delay of over five years, the first phase of Ram Jhula is finally ready. The three-lane cable-stayed road overbridge can be opened for traffic from December 1. Mumbai-based M/s Afcons Infrastructure that built the bridge has officially communicated to the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) that it would hand over bridge on December 1.
MSRDC executive engineer Samay Nikose told TOI that the head office has been informed about the completion of works and permission has been sought for inaugural.“Afcons wrote to MSRDC on November 28. The contractor informed that works would be completed by November 30. Date for inaugural will be finalized in the next two days,” he said.
MSRDC had slapped a penalty on Afcons for delay in completing the work. Penalty of Rs 96 lakh has been deducted from the payment to the contractor.
The plan is now to run traffic on both the old and the new bridge for some days. Then the process to dismantle the older bridge will be undertaken. The second phase, another three-lane cable stayed bridge would come up in place of old bridge.
The entire project—six-lane cable stayed bridge—was to be completed in 2009. The Central government had approved the project along with Kalamna railway over bridge on March 21, 2006. Kalamna bridge opened for traffic in April 2010 while Ram Jhula got bogged down in various problems.