Photograph showing the sharp 90-degree turn ROB at Aishbagh in Bhopal— DC Image

BHOPAL: Bhopal’s Rs 18 crore- Aishbagh Railway Overbridge (ROB) that had triggered outrage ten months ago for its sharp 90-degree turn is undergoing structural changes to remove the design deficiencies.

The right angle turn of the 648-meter-long overbridge is being corrected by widening the curve radius from about two meters to 2.5 meters and expanding the bridge width from 8.5 meters to 10.5-11 meters to eliminate risks of vehicle accidents, a senior officer of the state Public Works Department (PWD) said here on Monday.

The railways and the state PWD jointly cleared the revised design of the ROB, prepared by the Delhi-based Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), paving the way for commencement of work to widen the sharp 90-degree turn in the overbridge, PWD chief engineer (bridge) Gopal Singh told the media here.

“It took ten months and several meetings by the railways and state PWD to finally give their stamp of approval to the revised design of the ROB”, sources said.

Work to remove the flaws in the overbridge to overcome the 90-degree turn issue has already begun and the ROB is expected to be opened to the public by December this year, a senior PWD officer told this newspaper, unwilling to be quoted.

Built under space constraints near an adjacent metro line, the sharp right-angled turn had rendered the bridge unsafe for traffic, prompting Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav to suspend its inauguration until the flaws were removed.

The Madhya Pradesh PWD had suspended eight engineers of the department after the ROB triggered a controversy ten months ago but they were later reinstated.

The curve has been redesigned with a wider, safer sweeping arc under joint supervision of the railways and the state PWD.

The agency which was awarded the contract for construction of the ROB has been given the responsibility of widening the curve of the overbridge, sources said.


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