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It’s flyover fillip for bottleneck capital.
The state road construction department has decided to loosen its purse strings and fork out Rs 300 crore to end traffic snarls on three thoroughfares of Ranchi within three years.
Honouring chief minister Arjun Munda’s dream of better road communication, the advance planning wing of the department has already readied detailed project reports (DPRs) for elevated freeways along the arterial Sujata Chowk and Lalpur Chowk, while the process to draw up the DPR for a flyover on the busy Albert Ekka Chowk has also begun.
During rush hour, Albert Ekka Chowk and Sujata Chowk each witness a vehicle pressure of 7,000, while around 6,000 ply along Lalpur Chowk.
According to the Sujata Chowk DPR, which is in the final stage of submission, the flyover will stretch 600 metres between Raj Hospital and Research Centre and Kadru Road intersection (near Big Bazaar). Its proposed width is 36 metres though the currently available space is 25 metres. This means the government will have to acquire land on both sides to make up for the shortfall.
The Lalpur Chowk flyover will be a longer venture at 1.5km. It will rise from KC Roy Memorial Hospital situated between Dangra Toli Chowk and Lalpur Chowk and plunge at the state employment exchange office before Kutchery Road. The proposed width is 36 metres, but again available space is between 15 metres and 20 metres along the stretch. So, land acquisition will remain the key to the project.
The proposed flyover along the busy Albert Ekka Chowk will be a 1.1km elevated thoroughfare between Urdu Library (on Main Road) and Jaipal Singh Stadium on Kutchery Road. The required width, which will be fixed in the DPR, is expected to eat into a portion of the sprawling Ranchi University campus and Shashtri Market near Shaheed Chowk.
Speaking to The Telegraph, executive engineer of the advance planning wing Abinash Dipak said the first two DPRs had been readied by Pune-based agency Sancon Engineers Private Limited, which has charged Rs 30 lakh for each. Another Rs 40 lakh is likely to be spent on a Bangalore-based agency that is readying the blueprint for Albert Ekka Chowk flyover.
The Sujata Chowk freeway is expected to leave the state exchequer poorer by Rs 50 crore, while the estimated cost of the Lalpur Chowk project is a whopping Rs 150 crore. The third flyover at Albert Ekka Chowk too will cost more than Rs 100 crore.
“The DPRs are almost complete. Now, the government has to show some will power and start construction work at the earliest,” Dipak, who is monitoring the ambitious projects, said, adding that the state was yet to zero in on private land needed for the three flyovers.
It is learnt that the district land acquisition office has not been apprised of requirements. But Dipak added that the projects were likely to be undertaken in the 2012-13 financial year. “Once construction work starts, it will take another two years before the flyovers make debut. We expect to complete the projects by 2014-15 if everything goes as per plan.”
Will three flyovers take care of jam sessions in Ranchi?
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