The National Highways Division of the Public Works Department will try to complete the Shiradi Ghat reconstruction within the stipulated six-month period—December 1 to May 31, 2015—to lessen the woes of road users.
Participating in a meeting convened by the Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner here recently on the Ghat closure issue, C. Nataraj, Executive Engineer of the NH Division, made this promise. He said that the contract for laying a 13-km concrete road between Heggadde and Kempu Hole guest house had already been awarded to Mangalore-based Ocean Construction at a cost of Rs. 69 crore. He added that tenders have been invited for laying concrete road on the remaining 13 km stretch between Kempu Hole guest house and Adda Hole (near Gundya) at a cost of Rs. 85 crore.
The Department has asked the contractors to deploy high-speed concrete laying machines that could lay concrete about 4.5m wide and 5m long per minute. At this rate, the 300m long and 4.5m wide concrete road could be laid in eight hours.
The Department would ensure deploying at least two such machines, one from the Sakaleshpur end and the other from the Gundya end and also ask the contractors to extend working hours for at least 12 hours, he added.
Mr. Nataraj’s submissions were made after queries by the DC A.B. Ibrahim and Superintendent of Police Sharnappa.
The project has been designed with advance technology by B.B. Pande, retired civil engineering professor of IIT, Kharagpur and R.K. Jain, retired Chief Engineer of Haryana. Both would also oversee execution of the project, he said when asked about the quality of construction.
