Baramulla: The district administration Baramulla has made a fresh attempt to resume the construction work of Jetty Bridge in Baramulla. The execution of work on the bridge was suspended for more than one decade.
The Jetty Bridge Baramulla has its significance as it will decongest the choked Baramulla town in north Kashmir.
The bridge however is yet to see the light of the day despite passage of more than two decades since it was sanctioned, causing multiple traffic snarls in several areas. The work of Jetty Bridge had started with much fanfare in 2002 and it would bypass the heavy flow of traffic of Rafiabad and Kupwara areas from the town. Talking to Greater Kashmir, Deputy Commissioner (DC) Baramulla, Dr Sehrish Asgar said the project was allotted to JKPCC in past, but the bridge has been now handed over to the Roads and Buildings (R&B) department which is expected to start the construction in coming times.
“JKPCC could not construct the bridge in all these years and now we have handed over the project to the R&B department. The tendering process has been started afresh and we are expecting positive results for it,” Dr Sehrish Asgar told Greater Kashmir. Notably, the project cost of the bridge was around Rs 2 to Rs 3 crore at the time of its approval. For the last around 10 years, there has been no headway in the execution of the work. In the last 20 years, the executing agency (JKPCC) has failed to complete the construction of the two pillars of the bridge.
The bridge would connect Khoja Bagh with Janbazpora and Chakloo area of Rafiabad and serve as an alternate route for traffic between Baramulla and Kupwara. The facility would also curtail the travel time as well. “But the construction has hit a roadblock and the construction of pillars is still incomplete, not to talk of the upper layer works,” an official said.
The delay in completion of the bridge resulted in the cost escalation of the vital project as the project cost soured from Rs 2 crore to around Rs 21 crore.
“The project cost escalated because the work remained suspended for several years,” the official said. Interestingly, the prolonged halt on construction work on Jetty Bridge prompted the government in 2019 to come up with an idea of languishing projects in J&K to complete these incomplete projects.
In September 2018, the J&K government established the J&K Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (JKIDFC) with a mandate to raise loans for these projects. “Incomplete work on Jetty Bridge was the main reason for the government to establish IDFC,” an official said. Superintendent Engineer (SE) R&B department Baramulla and Kupwara districts Sheikh Javaid said the department has floated tenders for the second time to invite participation of the contractors.
“First time there was no response to the tenders floated by the R&B department. But we made a second attempt and have also mobalised the contractors to ascertain the reasons for getting zero response to the tenders,” he said. The SE R&B department said the tenders will be opened on October 17 or 19 following which further decision will be taken. “This time we hope that contractors will participate in the tendering process and we will go ahead with the execution of the work on the project,” he said.