Date:02/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/02/stories/2008120259770500.htm

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Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Flyover getting ready for traffic

Special Correspondent

Pre-cast girders placed atop railway lines at Greenlands

Wait for requisite permission from Railways delays project
Railway engineers convinced after detailed technical studies

- PHOTO: NAGARA GOPAL

The wait’s over: Construction work in progress at Begumpet flyover on Monday.

HYDERABAD: Two yellow behemoths that have been peeping from behind the iron curtain covering the railway tracks on the Greenlands flyover in the last few days have almost done the job scores of commuters have been waiting for.

Two cranes – a 150 tonner and another of 70 tonnes capacity – have placed six huge pre-cast, pre-stressed girders on the piers just above the railway lines at midnight on the weekend.

What is left now is fastening the girders and putting two more spans of six girders adjacent to them on either side of the railway tracks.

Once blacktopping and signages are over in about a month’s time, the much-delayed flyover would be ready to take on the traffic, say GHMC officials.

New year gift

“It will be a new year gift to the people of twin cities as the difficult part is over,” affirm officials, excited over reaching the last lap as work began three years ago. The 100-metres stretch took a while, in fact, more than a year to get requisite permission from the Railways to put girders atop.

Railway engineers were convinced only after detailed technical studies by independent experts from IIT Chennai, JNTU and others endorsing the municipal corporation’s design to join the new flyover to the existing one to form a six lane carriageway.

A special 80-foot trolley brought the six girders to the site on Friday night and for five hours each that midnight and 24 hours later, power supply for the railway traction overhead was stopped to settle the girders under the watchful eye of the Railway engineers. GHMC had to pay Rs. 16 lakh at Rs. 1.60 lakh an hour to the South Central Railway (SCR) for halting the power supply.

In hindsight, municipal officials feel the critical work atop the tracks should have been left to the Railways, which they usually do, to avoid the time lag. Save for this stretch, rest of the 1.1 km flyover was opened in two stages with the first – from Chief Minister’s residence till the tracks last year and from tracks on other side till HPS (Begumpet) six months ago.

Officials, however, are tight-lipped over payment of another Rs. 9.87 crore demanded by the contractor over and above the original estimate of Rs. 13.36 crore due to delay in land acquisition.