Digital Goa, July 4 – Wait for opening of the under construction Zuari bridge is going to be still longer for now. Four lanes of the bridge will be thrown open for public by September- October, announced PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral today. He had earlier announced that 4 lanes of the bridge will be ready by the end of July. He was speaking to media persons after inspecting the bridge work along with department officials. By or before August 15, work of alignment of the bridge will be completed as per Dilip Buildcon officials. Testing will take place after that and by Sept-Oct, the bridge will be thrown open for public, said Cabral. He further added that the work of remaining 4 lanes of the 8 lane bridge will be completed by April 2023. Interestingly, PWDs initial target for opening one four-lane section of the cable-stay bridge was December 2019.
Incidentally, commuters are put through hardships due to heavy traffic jams at the existing Zuari bridge, specially during peak hours.
Watch Tower work to be kept on hold for now
Work of the 2 proposed towers ( observatory and viewing galleries) atop the new bridge are not part of the original scope of the contract and will be considered at later stage, said Cabral. The construction cost of the two towers in around Rs 300 crore and it cannot be done in the present scope of the work, he added. We were trying to get the work done under public private partnership (PPP) mode and on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis. PWD Goa division had even floated a tender to this effect, but received lukewarm response. If the project proponent has to put in entire Rs 300 crore, that kind of revenue might not come and the project may not be viable in PPP mode. We will have to look at alternative models, opined Cabral.
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