Kali Platoon bridge: DRM pulls up officials for not replacing old guarders
Nitish Sharma
Tribune News Service
Ambala, August 5
Dinesh Kumar, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), Ambala, yesterday pulled up officials of the bridge section for their failure to fully utilise the first block (45 minutes of no train movement) of time given to replace old guarders of the Kali Platoon railway bridge with new ones.
When the DRM reached the site to monitor the work he found the officials and labourers absent.
Dinesh, said, “A block of 45 minutes was provided to them to push the new guarder, which was pushed nearly five metres on Friday. A mail express was regulated for a few minutes while some goods trains were stopped. There is lack of coordination and the work is already behind schedule. We have to cover a span of nearly 42 metres and the work is expected to be completed in 7 or 8 days. The work will be done daily unless there is heavy rail traffic. The bridge is likely to be ready by December”.
Randhir Singh, senior section engineer, Bridge Department, Ambala, clarified, “The labourers were working since morning and had left for lunch just when the first block was announced”.
British-era bridge connects two parts of Cantt
The Kali Platoon railway bridge connects two parts of Ambala Cantonment. It dates back to the British era and was declared unsafe for use over a decade ago. The work to modify the bridge was started in November, 2015, and the Railways had planned to complete it within nine months. The project has already missed several deadlines due to poor coordination between departments. In this project, the new guarders will replace the old ones.
