WB railway bridge inaugurated by TMC minister - and soon by MoS too

The Centre and the state couldn't, it seems, bridge  differences over a new railway overpass in Burdwan in West Bengal with the local administration inaugurating it despite an announcement from the Union ministry that Railways Minister Piyush Goyal would be doing the honours.

The four-lane cable-stayed railway overbridge (RoB), completed with 50:50 sharing between the Ministry of Railways and the Trinamool Congress-led state government, could well see two inaugurations.

The Rs 300 crore bridge was inaugurated in the presence of state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee on Tuesday, a day after the Union ministry declared Goyal would cut the ribbon on September 30, according to media reports.

And another inauguration ceremony could be on the cards to reflect its twin ownership, officials said.

The ministry has reviewed its plans and now announced that Goyal will be available on video conference and the bridge will be inaugurated by his junior minister Suresh Angadi on September 27, they said.

Goyal, who is in the US, was scheduled to open the bridge on September 30 a day after his return on September 29.

The Burdwan RoB was completed in 197 days without affecting traffic for even a  day, officials said.

Work on the 188.43 metre cable-stayed RoB started in 2012. Besides 1.5 metre-wide footpaths on both sides parallel to the lanes, it has 27.7 metres of width to accommodate vehicles on four lanes.

The implementation of the RoB progressed over eight years in Burdwan Junction of the Eastern Railway, one of the country's future fast track models passing over the busy railway yards accommodating 10 tracks, they said.

It encountered many issues along the way, including the restriction of maximum height of the road surface clearances and busy movement of rolling stocks over the yard, the officials said.

The RoB connects Burdwan town with the two sub-divisions of Kalna and Katwa, and is on the Howrah–Bardhaman main line.