The Deccan Chronicle 10.12.2010
Begumpet to get renovated bridgeDec. 9: The 60-foot stretch on the Begumpet road-over-bridge, which is weak and cannot take vehicular load, is finally all set to be strengthened and thrown open for vehicular traffic.
Pragati Consultants, a technical firm that was given the task of studying and suggesting ways of fortifying the weak portion of flyover, will submit its report by month end.
It will then be sent to the South Central Railway and the Indian Institute of Technology for clearance, the GHMC engineer-in-chief, Dr Panduranga Rao, said. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation will carry out the fortification work. Normally, it is the Railways that take up construction or repairs on road over bridges that stretch over railway tracks. But in the case of the Begumpet flyover, the GHMC stepped in after the SCR dilly-dallied on the issue.
Currently, the 60-foot weak stretch has a road divider, or to be precise, a footpath that was not removed when the new Greenlands flyover was merged with the Begumpet RoB.
The footpath is a major bottleneck for vehicular traffic. This divider was constructed by the SCR authorities 23 years ago when it constructed the portion of the flyover over the railway tracks.
Dr Rao said the stretch is weak because right below it are the railway tracks. “When the Begumpet RoB was constructed, no one had thought that the RoB would be widened later.”
It may be mentioned that the GHMC had swung into action only after the then Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, had pulled up officials for leaving a road divider in the middle of the flyover.
