Extradosed bridge to come up on Kaithlighat-Dhalli stretch

Bhanu P Lohumi

Shimla, September 21

The “world’s longest extradosed single-span bridge”, which is slated to be constructed on 620-feet-high pillars (approximately equal to the height of three Qutub Minars) near Shakaral on the Kaithlighat-Dhalli stretch of the Parwanoo-Shimla four-laning project, is set to become another tourist attraction.

There will be only two pillars in this 280-m-long single-span extradosed cable bridge to be constructed at a cost of Rs 600 crore in three years and the height of the bridge (top of the pillar) from the ditch will be 826 feet, said National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) regional officer Abdul Basit.

About the structure

• An extradosed bridge implies a cable-stayed bridge between two pillars
• In such bridges, 50% of the load is borne by the cables and the rest by the deck
• It is mostly suited to medium-length spans between 100 m (330 ft) and 250 m (820 ft)
• Over 50 such bridges are said to have been constructed around the world

He said the bridge would be built by the state-of-the-art technology on the Shakral-Dhalli section of the stretch by Gawar Infrastructure Company, Gurgaon. He added that the beautification of pavements and lightning would add to the appeal of the bridge.

“This will be the world’s first extradosed bridge with a span length of 280 m, surpassing the 275-m-long span extradosed bridge in Japan, as per information collected from Google,” said detailed project report (DPR) consultant, Intercontinental Techno Consultant, Neeraj Choudhary.

To cost Rs 600 cr

There will be only two pillars in this 280-m-long single-span extradosed cable bridge to be constructed at a cost of Rs 600 crore in three years. The height of the bridge (top of the pillar) from the ditch will be 826 feet. —Abdul Basit, Regional officer, NHAI

He said the new highway would bypass Shimla and reduce the distance between Kaithlighat and Dhalli from 40.1 km to 28.4 km. The stretch would be constructed in two sections. The Kaithlighat-Shakral (17.46 km) section would be constructed by the HP Singla group while the Shakral-Dhalli (10.98 km) section would be constructed by Gawar Infrastructure Company.

The total cost of the project is Rs 3,915 crore, which includes the construction of five tunnels measuring 5.14 km in length and five major and one minor bridge, besides 22 viaducts.

The length of the longest and shortest tunnels is 2.66 km and 242 m, respectively. The bypass would be linked at seven points with Shimla city.