Construction of underpasses to take off soon

The CHB is also scheduled to hold a committee meeting for fine-tuning the project. The committee would include chief engineers from the Chandigarh Engineering department,the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh and the CHB.

“The process of fine-tuning is scheduled to complete by this month. Three agencies are shortlisted after the presentation of their structure designs. All the three have considerable experience in handling similar projects across the country,” said CHB chairman Mohanjeet Singh.

The three agencies shortlisted are GMC Products,S P Singla Constructions and Tantia Construction. Of these three,one agency will be finalised. The decision could be taken either right after the committee meeting or after inviting revised financial bids.

In the first phase,a senior official said,three underpasses will be constructed at Matka Chowk,Press Chowk and Transport Chowk,all stretches prone to frequent traffic bottlenecks due to the increasing vehicle load.

Work for the underpasses would be allotted in design-build-maintain model and the agency hired for the project would not only have to plan ways to avoid common problems,including water logging and poor lighting inside subways,but to maintain it for five years.

Singh said the project was estimated to complete within a year of initiation of construction work. “The work of digital topographical survey,utility mapping (location of underground services),geo-technical investigation and traffic survey work are already completed,” he added.