Three yrs not enough for Konkan Rly to build bridge at Ranchi

The dusty road of Ranchi8217;s Kadru Chowk is no different from three years ago when the Konkan Railway Construction Ltd started building a bridge there.

The dusty road of Ranchi8217;s Kadru Chowk is no different from three years ago when the Konkan Railway Construction Ltd KRCL started building a bridge there. If the daily commuters are to be believed, things have only become worse. They claim the only progress so far has been an increase in the number of potholes and traffic snarls.

8220;It has created hell for us,8221; said Rati Kumari, secretary of Kadru Nagrik Samiti, a non-registered body. 8220;We have decided to move court to either get the bridge constructed in a time-bound manner or immediately clear the potholes and pillars,8221; she said.

May be that8217;s why KRCL8217;s Jharkhand in-charge G.B. Nagendra prefers not to talk about it. 8220;Please don8217;t quote me. Otherwise, it will appear as if I am behind your story,8221; he said.

In fact, Indian Railways and the state government had entered into an agreement for constructing 14 bridges in Jharkhand at an estimated cost of Rs 163 crore. KRCL, which was to construct them with funds provided by the two parties on a 50:50 ratio and land made available to it by the state government, began the work in 2003.

Today, only two bridges 8212;one at Jasidih in Deoghar and second at Pakur district 8212; are ready. A third near Dibdih here is nearing completion, but the remaining 13 bridges are still under construction, as the required land has not been handed over to KRCL till date.

This has taken its toll. Besides the cost escalation of each project, the company is finding it hard to guard its material 8212; iron rods, cement and pillars 8212; at the site. 8220;Although we have posted securitymen to keep 24-hour vigil at every site, we have received half a dozen complaints of theft from different places,8221; cribbed a KRCL engineer.

At Kadru, the bridge was to be constructed with a footpath. Since land allotted for the footpath had been encroached upon, Nagendra approached Chief Engineer Roads Ripu Sudan Dubey seeking his intervention to remove it, but in vain. 8220;I have forwarded his plea to the district authorities. We hope the encroachment will be removed at the earliest,8221; Dubey said. 8220;When we cannot even remove a small encroachment, how can we honour those investors who had signed MoUs promising to invest over Rs 1.50 lakh crore in our state,8221; a senior government officer asked.

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Now, Nagendra is learnt to have sought permission from Dubey to construct the bridge without the footpath. But Dubey is not ready to allow him to do so. 8220;Since the footpath had to be constructed as per the plan for which the fund was already sanctioned, I cannot oblige him. I am sorry,8221; he said.