JAMMU: Minister for Roads and Buildings Abdul Majid Wani on Sunday inspected various bridges and roads in Jammu to assess the damages caused due to flash flood.
During his inspection of Fourth Tawi Bridge the minister was informed that the bridge has not suffered any structural failure or damages, however, the left side approach towards Belicharana side (Warehouse side) got damaged to a length of about 60 meters. These have also some minor damages to filling behind about A3 and A4 on Bhagwati Nagar Side.
The Chief Engineer R&B informed the minister that the cost of temporary restoration shall be approximately Rs 1.25 crore. He said that permanent restoration works shall be taken up after proper design and study of hydraulic data to ensure its safety.
The minister also inspected Niki Tawi Bridge, which has been washed off due to incessant rains and flash floods. Nearly 45 villages located in Tawi islands, having a population of about 20,000 were cut-off due to damages of Niki Tawi Bridge but PWD had already taken up construction of alternate road from Fourth Tawi Bridge to provide shortest possible connectivity to these areas.
This link road was immediately resorted from 4th Tawi Bridge to Karnail Chak in Tawi Island by PWD to provide an escape route to the marooned people of the island. The minister instructed to immediately restore these roads.
The minister has issued instructions to line departments for immediate restoration of damaged bridges and roads to ensure that road connectivity is restored at the earliest.
The minister was also informed that in Jammu province out of 3,517 roads having length of 9,851 kms, about 2,553 roads have been damaged due to recent heavy rainfall and flash floods.The R&B Department is mobilising all the resources and so far about 375 machines have been put into service to restore 1,800 road links. In addition to this about 64 bridges including one motorable bridge over Niki Tawi has been washed off and 163 foot bridges and motor bridges have been damaged in various parts of Jammu province. It was informed that the restoration works of damaged bridges have been taken on war-footing.
Wani has directed the concerned officers of R&B and other line departments to mobilise their men and machinery to restore the road connectivity and ensure that people do not face any inconvenience .He said that road links should be restored immediately to ensure that relief is provided to the flood affected people .
Chief Engineer R&B Jammu and MD JKPCC besides other senior officers accompanied the minister.