BRO Chief briefs Dr Jitendra about Chattergala, other Udhampur LS constituency projects
STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Border Roads Organisation (BRO) Chief, Lt Gen Raghu Srinivasan on Wednesday called on Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh and briefed him about the Chattergala tunnel project as well as the other upcoming Road & Bridge projects in the Udhampur-Kathua-Doda Lok Sabha constituency.
Dr Jitendra lauded the BRO for undertaking and completing a maximum number of projects in his Lok Sabha constituency including a number of difficult road and bridge projects in the last nine and a half years on the request of public representatives or demand of the public. For the first time, the BRO had accomplished road connectivity up to the Zero Line on the International Border (IB), he said.
In this Lok Sabha constituency alone, Dr Jitendra said, BRO had constructed around 200 big and small bridges.
Udhampur-Kathua-Doda Lok Sabha constituency had witnessed unprecedented progress in road and bridge construction in the last over over nine years, the notable among them being the Atal Setu at Basohli, Keediyan Gadyal and Juthana bridges in Kathua, Devika Bridge at Udhampur, new National Highway from Khilani-Marmat in Doda to Sudhmahadev, Kaljugar tunnel etc. About the proposed Chattergala tunnel, Dr Jitendra said, is a historic landmark project providing all-weather alternate road connectivity between the two distant regions and reducing the travel time from Doda to Lakhanpur to just around four hours, he said. The tunnel is likely to take about 4 years for completion after the execution work starts and its construction cost is around Rs. 3,000 to Rs 3,500 crore.
Since the BRO was facing some constraints of funds, Dr Jitendra Singh had also met the Union MoRTH Minister, Nitin Gadkari and requested for financial support to BRO through Bharatmala or any other appropriate channel from the MoRTH. Gadkari’s response was positive and he issued instructions to work out how best this could be done, he added. Dr Jitendra impressed upon the BRO Chief Lt Gen Srinivasan to expedite the Chattergala project as fast as possible. Dr Singh said, the demand for the tunnel at Chattergalla had been pending for several years, but somehow not taken up by earlier governments because of their different priorities.
Dr Jitendra informed that while Benadi bridge had been constructed in just 90 days by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) which is a BRO record till date, the Pakka Kotha bridge, which is 181 metres long multi span bridge, had been built in 102 days. The BRO projects also included construction of Ramban bridge and Brihon bridge.
