A five-member expert committee emphasized on the necessity of eight lane road construction of which was stopped by the State Government about two months ago owing to the financial crunch faced by the government due to Covid19.
The committee headed by the Town commissioner Satyendar Kumar and having three engineers of three engineering departments and one administrative officer from district headquarters on Wednesday had a thorough inspection of the entire stretch of this 20km road and held meetings with people including shopkeepers residing along the road for preparing report that was sought by deputy commissioner Uma Shankar Singh. The committee has to submit a report by Thursday evening.
The committee made clear that it's a four lane road but due to service lanes and cycle tracks is being considered as an eight lane road.
However, discussions that were made after inspection and meeting officials of State Highway Authorities of Jharkhand(SHAJ) it's all likely that the committee would clear the project but with minor alterations. SHAJ authorities also have made clear that the road is being developed keeping in view the future requirements and traffic load on this road .
Though no senior officials in the committee were willing to be quoted on the issues but made clear that cuts in two service lanes and two cycle-ways may be done to reduce further the cost of construction. Final draft on cuts would be handed over to DC in the report.
It's worth mentioning that the project conceived by former Dhanbad Mayor Chandrasekhar Agarwal has four lanes for motorised vehicles ,two service lanes and two separate lanes for cyclists.
The project was to cost Rs 417 crores but later the cost was reduced Rs 337 crores out of which the World Bank has provided Rs 220 crores as loan and rest is to be funded by the state government.
The committee suggests that since over 30 per cent work on road has been completed and earth work is almost complete shelving the project may pose a problem for common mass commuting on the existing road that has developed several potholes and ditches on either side of road.
In another move Dhanbad MLA Raj Singh on Wednesday met chief minister Hemant Soren and demanded for granting permission for restarting the construction in larger public interest. Dhanbad district Congress president Brajendar Prasad Singh in a separate memorandum too has demanded for completion of the construction of this road.