Kiratpur-Bhawana road to be opened to public on May 31

Our Correspondent

Hamirpur, May 26

The much-awaited Kiratpur-Bhawana section of the Kiratpur-Manali four-lane highway will be thrown open for traffic on May 31.

This section of the highway, when operational, will reduce the distance between two points by 37 km and travel time by over two and half hours. The length of the four lane highway is 41 km while the old NH was nearly 78 km.

The old route consumed more time to traverse as it had steep climb and sharp curves apart from it being maintained poorly. The stretch from Kainchi Mode to Bhawana has high traffic volume due to three cement factories, namely Ambuja plant at Darlaghat, ACC at Barmana and Ultratech near Baga in Bilaspur district.

Two additional link roads, one at Burmana at Dehar village and other at Bilaspur via Nauni on the old NH, have been constructed to connect two places with the highway.

The construction of the four lane was delayed because of the work on two railway over bridges. These ROBs are being constructed at Jagatkhana and Mandi Bharari.

Once open for traffic, the travel time from Bilaspur to Chandigarh will be reduced from 3.5 hours to two hours.

Col BS Chauhan, project director of Gawar Construction Company, said that the company had completed the construction work about nine months in advance. The deadline for the completion of this section was February 24 while it is almost complete and would be opened for traffic by May 31. He said Automatic Traffic Management System had been installed at every km and would be controlled by state police. The speed limit on the four lane highway would be 60 km per hour and those found over speeding would be challaned.

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