Only the iron scaffoldings have been in place for over six months for the construction of the twin railway underbridges beneath the Shoranur-Mangaluru Central Line on the Mahakalipadpu side of the Morgan’s Gate-Jeppinamogaru Road in Mangaluru on Saturday. | Photo Credit: H.S. MANJUNATH
Notwithstanding that the work of twin railway underbridges beneath Mangaluru-Shoranur lines for the Morgan’s Gate-Jeppinamogaru Cross four lane road at Mahakalipadpu that began in December 2021 is still in nascent stage, the Railways and the Mangaluru Smart City Ltd. are confident of the work getting completed by March next year.
Launching the work on March 28, 2021, Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, who had contributed ₹19.87 crore from his MPLAD funds, had said the four-lane road as well as twin RUBs will be completed within six months as against 12 months contracted time.
MSCL that funded ₹30.7 crore for the project faced difficulties in availing land for the road construction. Now the four-lane road was almost complete on this 1,078 m stretch, except about 100 m each near the railway lines on Mahakalipadpu and Jeppinamogaru sides, respectively.
The four-lane road work with twin RuBs was taken up for hassle-free connectivity between the Central Business District and regions South to the Netravathi bridge. The Railway Level Crossing at Mahalkalipadpu was the bottleneck with frequent gate closure creating traffic gridlocks. MSLC proposed to build the four-lane road with uniform width of 18 m for 941 m and 24 m wide for 137 m near the NH 66 Junction at Jeppinamogaru.
Road closed
Southern Railway’s Palakkad division got the existing road via Mahakalipadpu Level Crossing closed for all traffic, except two-wheelers from December 21, 2022. What the Railways could achieve in these 12 months was just erecting two concrete boxes on Jeppinamogaru-side and an iron scaffolding on the Mahakalipadpu-side, said Rajesh Poojari, a resident. Only a couple of workers were seen working at the site every day, he said.
Hundreds of vehicles, including fish transporting vehicles, city buses, and private cars, were made to ply via Pumpwell Circle that entailed an extra 6 km and over 30 minutes travel, regretted Suraj, a social worker. The enormous delay in completing the project has had miserable effect on thousands of people and waste of money, he said.
Divisional Railway Manager of Palakkad division Arun Kumar Chaturvedi told The Hindu the RuBs would be ready by March next. Karnataka Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) L.K. Atik directed officials concerned to complete the work by March during his site visit on Saturday.
MSCL General Manager K.S. Arun Prabha said it would take one month to push three each concrete boxes of 9 m long and 7 m tall beneath the Shoranur-MAJN line. Another two months were required for earth excavation beneath the Shoranur-Mangaluru Central line and construct concrete boxes.
