Nagpur: Travelling to Wardha Road from Manish Nagar and vice-versa will become easier when the railway underbridge (RUB) being built by MahaMetro opens for traffic in four months.
MahaMetro managing director Brijesh Dixit made this announcement on Wednesday. According to him, the railway overbridge (ROB) over the underpass will be opened for traffic in eight months.
Dixit told the media that the cost of the two structures was Rs90 crore as per the estimate. “However, we are completing the work in Rs 82 crore. In addition, 220 crore is needed for acquiring fourteen houses and a huge plot has also been saved due to innovative design,” he said. Director (project) Mahesh Kumar said that the RUB was a very challenging construction work due to proximity of houses to it. “We first constructed secant piles to prevent damage to the foundations of the houses.
We also had to make a lot of efforts to shift the sewage lines, electric cables and water pipelines. We had to lay an additional one kilometre sewage pipeline for shifting the portion under the railway track without causing inconvenience to local residents,” he added. The RUB will be 500 metre long. Part of it will have a roof and the remaining portion will be covered with polycarbonate sheet so that water does not enter the structure. “We will build three gratings inside the underpass and install pumps to throw out water.
These will ensure that there is no waterlogging inside the structure,” said Kumar. The ROB will be a bowstring structure, the first-of-its-kind in the city. It will be 900 metre long. “It will have a Y-shaped junction with the Wardha Road flyover.
Those wanting to take a right turn in either direction will use the underpass,” said the official. MahaMetro will construct stairs to enable locals to reach the ROB from ground level. On closure of Manish Nagar railway crossing, Dixit said that it could happen only if an RUB was constructed under it. “We can construct the second RUB too but Central Railways will have to take a call.
There is a formula for funding such underpasses. However, once our ROB and RUB are ready, half the traffic at the crossing will get diverted,” he added. The state government has handed over a 5,000 square metre land at Ujjwal Nagar to MahaMetro, which will be developed as a parking-cum-commercial complex. This will generate additional revenue for the Metro agency.
