The Central Railway (CR) will be carrying out a 4 days block to process the girder launching of the Patripul rail over bridge (ROB) in Kalyan. According to a CR official, following the approval from the Commission of Railway Safety (CRS), the block was scheduled on Wednesday. "We will be scheduling a block of 4 hours each on November 21 and November 22 and 3 hours each on November 28 and November 29 for the girders launching at Patripul ROB (Railover bridge) in Kalyan," said Shivaji Sutar, chief public relation officer, CR, Mumbai.
"Following the launching of girders, the remaining work of the construction will be processed by Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). Hence, the work of the new ROB is likely to be completed by end of this year," added Sutar.
The construction of the new Patripul ROB is carried parallel to the old one. Hence, the laying of girders of half part of the bridge, under city limits, was carried out by Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) between August 19 and August 24. This work was processed by MSRDC in coordination with KDMC. However, after a gap of around three months, the girder launching for the remaining part of the ROB will be carried out by CR in coordination with MSRDC within four days of the block.
The work on the much awaited two-lane Patripul project was delayed after the COVID-19-induced lockdown in March. However, following the traffic prohibition in August this year, the work was slowly resumed. The new deadline for the completion of the ROB was set as the end of August, 2020, by MSRDC. This has been now further delayed to December, as the remaining work of laying girders will be carried during the railway block announced by CR.
"At present, a huge traffic is observed on patripul bridge after closing down the old ROB. Hence, traffic is functional on the single lane, causing bottleneck on this route which connects the Kalyan-Dombivli-Shilphata-NaviMumbai stretch. The festival has added more traffic snarls causing congestion on this route," said a traffic official, from Kalyan.
"We hope that the construction of the new Patripul ROB will be completed by this year's end. Commuters have to face difficulties due to the traffic and are forced to spend 30-40 minutes to pass the stretch, which normally needs 5-10 minutes. Many accidents have also taken place," said Vaibhav Kulkarni, 35, a local commuter from Kalyan.
