HASSAN: Work on the construction of a railway over bridge (RoB) connecting the new bus terminal to NR Circle in Hassan is on track after an inordinate delay. The work started three years back and it has affected the free flow of traffic at the city centre owing to land acquisition. Now work has picked up pace and most of the pillars are complete.
The project started in January 2019 and work was halted after six months when the coalition government in the state fell. The change of administration and Covid had delayed the work considerably. Owing to the ROB construction, all vehicular traffic in the city's busy stretch between NR circle and railway gate was blocked one and half year back.
"Clearing government land encroachment was done and is no more a hindrance for the project. For the service road on one side, private land acquisition is pending for which PWD department had recently sent us a proposal. First, we discuss with the landowners then a decision will be taken on whether to purchase directly or to serve land acquisition notification," said assistant commissioner BA Jagadish.
"About 14,000 to 15,000 square feet of private land is needed for the five-metre-wide service road. A part of the buildings of Bank of Baroda and Federal Bank near NR Circle will also be needed for the work. The former bank will be shifted to a new building," said Channegowda, AEE, PWD.
"Out of 45 pillars, eight are yet to be constructed. Steel girders will be used only over railway track. The remaining works are fixing concrete girders over pillars, concrete reinforcement, constructing crash barriers to both edges and Reinforced Earth (RE) walls at the beginning. Few electric lines near NR Circle need to be shifted. The target is to finish this project by next March," said Nagaraj, senior section engineer, Mysuru railway division.
"Nearly 50% of the project is completed. The main pending work is the structure near the railway track where we have not started concrete work and we are waiting for steel prices to reduce," said Prabhakaran, DCE, Mysuru railway division.
