Lakkar Pul railway overbridge ready
Kuldip Bhatia
Ludhiana, April 13
After jumping several deadlines, the railway overbridge (ROB) in place of Lakkar Pul is finally ready. As the Northern Railways authorities are in the process of handing over the project to the Municipal Corporation after completion, the civic body, it is learnt, is now looking for a VIP for the formal inauguration of the ROB and throwing the second leg (down ramp) open to the vehicular traffic.
Though the Railways had earlier claimed that the down ramp of the ROB (from the Civil Lines side to Bhadaur House on Mata Rani Road) would be ready by March 31, 2015, and the flyover would become fully operational by Baisakhi, the construction agency is still giving final touches to the carpeting of approach road from the Civil Lines side, which is yet to be opened.
Crash barriers and streetlight poles are also being painted before the formal handing over of the project to the MC.
While work was on for construction of the down ramp of the ROB, the authorities had opened one side (up ramp) from Clock Tower to Civil Lines to vehicular traffic in the first week of April 2014.
Initially, only one-way traffic was permitted (from the up ramp) but to ease the traffic congestion on Domoria Bridge and Jagraon Bridge, two-way traffic was allowed to move on the single leg of the ROB.
Started way back in 2000, the ROB, which now replaces the erstwhile Lakkar Pul, had faced many a hurdles during 15 years. Work started and stalled on the project for variety of reasons, including paucity of funds with the MC and inordinate delay by the railways in final approval of the drawings of the portion of the ROB over the railway tracks.
Estimated to cost around Rs 13 crore at the time of planning, the project cost had escalated due to long delay and the final cost of the project had touched a staggering Rs 60 crore.
Even as formal opening of the second leg of the ROB is a matter of days now, the traffic police and the MC authorities were involved in an elaborate exercise to enforce a number of traffic regulatory measures to ensure that terminating point of the down ramp of the ROB (at Bhadaur House), which is already congested and dotted with temporary and permanent encroachments, would not become a traffic bottleneck.
Several hit and trial measures like restricting the movement of three-wheelers from Old Sabzi Mandi Chowk to Clock Tower Chowk, making Bhadaur House Road from Mata Rani Chowk to AC Market a one-way road and diversion of traffic from Domoria Pul Road towards Old Sabzi Mandi Chowk were being taken to maintain uninterrupted flow of traffic from down ramp of the ROB to Mata Rani Chowk when it becomes operational in the next few days.
