In a bid to smoothen traffic on National Highways, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has proposed to replace all railway level crossings with road over bridges (ROB) on non-National Highway Development Projects (NHDP) section.
level crossings were set up at intersections of railway lines and roads, meaning where the crossings were made without recourse to a bridge or tunnel.
The Ministry plans to take the task of replacing close to 240 level crossings (lCs) across the country with ROBs in a time-bound phased manner. “level crossings are a major bottleneck in the National Highway (NH) network of the country,” said an official from the Ministry.
“These level crossings are among the major reasons for congestion leading to inefficiency in NH Network and fatal accidents on National Highways. We were trying to find solutions for this problem for several years now but funds have been an issue,” said the official.
Till now, the construction of ROBs was mostly being taken up as a part of major road development programme under various schemes of the Ministry, namely NHDP and Special Accelerated Road Development programme in North East (SARDP, NE). According to officials, the construction of ROBs on level crossings on the remaining NH network did not get the desired attention due to paucity of funds.
“The last decade has seen a remarkable improvement in development of national highways. With lane width increasing and riding quality also undergoing a sea-change the replacement of lane Crossings with ROBs cannot be neglected any more,” he said.
The official said that the proposed lCs on which ROBs will be constructed across States will be done through State Public Works Departments and Ministry Project Implementation Units in phased manner.
“We plan to start work in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal,” said the official.