The construction of the road over bridge (ROB) between Rasulgarh and Vani Vihar Square has inordinately delayed the Railway Vikash Nigam Limited’s (RVNL) plan to construct a third railway line between Khordha and Barang Road.
In order to construct the ROB, traffic on National Highway-16 between Bhubaneswar and Cuttack needs to be diverted as a portion of the highway would be blocked for the project.
Accordingly, a diversion plan was submitted by RVNL to the Commissionerate police, which has provided a diversion plan to divert the NH traffic from Pitapalli to Balikuda.
However, the State Government is yet to give a green signal owing to the Works Department’s delay in complying with the suggestion by the Commissionerate police to repair and upgrade the infrastructure on the diversion routes, which is yet to be completed. Due to the super critical nature of the project RVNL Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Pradeep Gaur had written a letter on September 10, 2020 to the Odisha Chief Secretary for his intervention and direct the concerned authorities to take immediate steps to implement the diversion plan.
Meanwhile, under the instructions of the Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy a meeting was held between the RVNL authorities, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Commerce and Transport Department senior officials, World Bank Chief Engineer, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Commissionerate police Traffic DCP to expedite the work.
A committee has been formed under the chairmanship of Commerce and Transport Secretary Madhusudan Padhi to ensure that the process is expedited for reconstruction of the ROB so that the third railway line is commissioned at the earliest.