Rajahmundry: The abandoned railway bridge, which is popularly known as Havelock bridge, across Godavari river will be developed as tourism centre similar to the development taken up to a bridge in New York.
Union minister of state for tourism K. Chiranjeevi inspected the Havelock bridge during his visit here on Wednesday. Speaking on the occasion, he said that a Government of India enterprise, Rail India
Technical and Economic Service Limited, was entrusted with the task to study the present status of the bridge and also to recommend as to what steps should be taken to develop it as a tourism centre by the union ministry of tourism and added that the agency would submit its report in 45 days.
Referring to the proposed auction of the bridge as a scrap by the railway authorities earlier, the minister said that the union ministry was ready to pay whatever the amount the railways would fix in order to take it over.
He said that though earlier union railway ministers including Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mamata Banerjee did not respond positively to hand over the bridge to the tourism authorities, the present railway minister Mallikarjuna Kharge was responding positively to do so.
The union minister said that Rs 5 crore was sanctioned to develop nurseries at Pitchukalanka as ecopark and added that they were going to sanction Rs 50 crore to develop a mega tourism project between Papikondalu and Konaseema.
Turning his attention on the proposed bifurcation of the state, the union minister Chiranjeevi said he was a staunch supporter of united state and said that it would be unwise to go ahead with the bifurcation of the state without addressing the serious concerns of the people on several issues.
