The two-member team, which has suggested repairs to the rail-cum-road bridge (RCRB) across Godavari, is likely to submit its report to the Principal Chief Engineer of South Central Railway (SCR) as well as the A.P State Principal Secretary of Roads and Buildings (R&B) Department shortly.
Design engineers Mr. Ranjan Roy and Mr. Neelkamal Sarkar of Metco Company Pvt. Ltd., which will be taking up the repair work, said they had suggested the ‘strip seal joint’ method.
The project was taken up at the initiative of Mr. Maganti Muralimohan MP, on whose appeal the SCR and the R&B Department sent the team of experts to suggest repairs to the bridge.
Meanwhile, Metco representatives examined slabs, which have been badly damaged.
Mr. Roy said the corners of the joints on the bridge were damaged owing to heavy vehicular traffic.
He added that the team would explore possibilities of repairing more than 400 secondary joints.
R&B Superintending Engineer Mr. C.S.N. Murthy said the distance between one joint and another was 6.7 metres and suggested rubber joints.
But, Metco is for concrete joints, which are costly.
On their expertise, Roy and Neelkamal said they had taken up repair of the 1.2 km-long RCRB across the Brahmaputra.
Mr. Murthy said the RCRB was opened for traffic in 1974, and that the R&B Department had spent more than Rs. 3 crore on repair in 1995.
The last repair was taken up at a cost of Rs. 20 lakh in 2010.
Mr. Murthy said the work would be completed in in three months.
“Before Pushkarams, we will complete the work, and the induction type of lighting at a cost of Rs. 70 lakh will be completed in a month’s time. The retaining wall work will be taken up at a cost of Rs. 22 lakh,” Mr. Murthy added.
