Karnal railway overbridge design changed after 80% work completed

Parveen Arora

Karnal, June 2

The design of a railway overbridge that is being constructed at Kohan in the district has been changed after around 80 per cent construction of the project has been completed. The change has been made on the demand of the locals as they feared that the existing design may lead to bottleneck on the Kohand-Ganjbar road.

The state government has given in principle approval to the design, which will cost an additional amount of Rs 8.08 crore. “We have got approval in principle from the government and work is likely to start from June 15. It is expected to end by March 31, 2023,” Sandeep Goel, Superintending Engineer (SE) of the Public Works Department (B&R) said.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had announced the project to give relief to the residents of various villages situated across the railway lines on Kohand-Assandh road. A company had started the work on March 27, 2019, and was slated to complete it by March 26, 2021. But following the villagers demand to increase the via duct portion instead of the solid portion, the work was stopped in May 2021, an official said.

Later the department re-designed the remaining part, in which the length of via duct has been increased by 67 meters and towards NH-44 it has been increased by 47 meters.

Gharaunda MLA Harvinder Kalyan said, “Residents of the local villages had apprised me of the issue. I raised it with the higher authorities who have now approved the new design.”

“Under the new design, the elevated portion will be increased, which will be beneficial for the residents of the area in future also,” Kalyan said.

On the other hand, opposition claimed that the design was ill-prepared which wasted public money. “The design of this project was prepared without any ground work. Who is responsible for the wastage of public money spent on this project,” Virender Rathore, a Congress leader, said.