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Our Correspondent
Kohima, July 15 (EMN): The ongoing construction of four-lane bridge over the Sanuorü River in Kohima that leads towards Nagaland Civil Secretariat, is expected to be completed in the next 12 months.
This was informed to journalists by the PWD (R&B) executive engineer, South division Kohima, Vizotuo Seletsu, at the bridge construction site on Wednesday.
The engineer admitted that the commitment made by one of the contractors last year to open two lanes to traffic by April 2020 could not be fulfilled but maintained that work is in progress despite encountering challenges.
He said the initial cost of the project was INR 20 crore when the work was sanctioned in July 2016 but it would escalate to approximately INR 37 crore now due to various technicalities involved.
He informed that the actual work of the four-lane bridge started with land-cutting on July 5, last year (2019), and that about 75% work has been completed exactly 12 months and 10 days after it took off.
Casting of the arch for the two-lane bridge is expected to be completed within a month time, the official informed, adding that it takes lot of time as it could not cast more than a metre at a time.
Seletsu said that besides the bad road condition between Dimapur and Kohima, which makes transportation of materials difficult, the Covid-19 pandemic affected the workforce earlier but is now in place.
Informing that all the pillars had been raised, he said they were determined to execute construction work, ‘be it rainy seasons or winter’.
The official also sought the support of the public towards the executing firms while expressing hope to complete the project within 12 months.
It may be mentioned that the ongoing project is a joint venture of two contractors from the state: M/s Vilelie Khamo and Sons, and M/s KC Angami and Sons.