Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday wrote a letter to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, drawing his attention to the need of constructing a new four-lane high-level bridge over Sutlej near the Nangal Dam bridge, which, he said, is “structurally unsafe”.
In his letter to the Union Minister for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Badal said that the Centre declared Kiratpur Sahib-Anandpur Sahib-Nangal-Una road as National Highway (NH-503 extension) in March last year.
“This road is an inter-State highway of immense economic importance connecting Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. The road also connects several important historical and religious towns in Himachal Pradesh,” Badal said in the letter.
“The traffic on this road has increased manifold over past few years. It crosses thickly-populated town of Nangal and Sutlej river at Nangal Dam bridge, which was constructed in 1951. The bridge has a carriageway of 6.7 meters only,” he said.
He added, “Besides, the railway line from Una to Nangal-Anandpur Sahib-Chandigarh-Delhi also crosses the road near the bridge. This leads to frequent traffic jams on account of closure of the level crossing.”
Since railway traffic has also increased on this section, the level crossing remains closed most of the time, causing huge inconvenience to people, Badal said.
The high-level bridge over Sutlej has become structurally weak and unsafe. Therefore, there is an urgent need for constructing a new bridge over the river, on the downstream of the existing bridge along with the Railway Over Bridge on the railway crossing No 88-C, he said.
Already, the Union Ministry of Railways had appointed M/s Technical Consultancy Services, Dehradun, as consultant to prepare the detailed project report of the project.