Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI: PWD Minister Shri Nilesh Cabral said that the one four-lane section of the new Zuari Bridge will be opened for public vehicular movement in September 2022. The section is expected to be completed by August 15, 2022, including the entire bridge’s alignment.
Shri Cabral inspected the ongoing work of one of the ambitious projects of the State – the new Zuari Bridge today and informed that the alignment of the bridge is the major work which has to be done, and it is done at every stage of the bridge.
Before July 15, 2022, he added that entire segments of the one four-lane section of the bridge will be completed, and after that, testing will be done.
Shri Cabral said the other four-lane section will be done by May 2023. IIT Mumbai has been involved in the work of the bridge, and they are monitoring it regularly from the initial design stage till the bridge’s functioning. All the material required for the bridge’s completion has already reached Goa, and he added there is no need to import more material.
Package I and Package III of the entire work are 100 % complete, he said and informed that the Central Public Work Department has changed the Chinese consultant to an Indian consultant who was there in the original contract due to COVID. The original French design of the bridge was not changed, he maintained.
Polymer-based asphalt will be put on the bridge, he informed. This bridge will be the country’s first bridge to have a 36 Mtrs span width of the bridge having 8 lanes. The bridge has a span length of 360 meters. The original contract of the bridge did not have the scope for a viewing gallery or watch tower, which requires an additional budget of Rs.300 crores, he pointed out.
Chief Engineer, Roads & Bridges, National Highway Goa, Dinesh Gupta; Principal Chief Engineer, PWD, Uttam Parksekar; Vice President, M/s Dilip Buildcon Pvt. Ltd. Atul Joshi, Authority Engineers of the consultant of bridge and others were present on occasion. Presentation of the work was also done by officials.
