Renovation of Cauvery bridge pavement to be over by September

THE National High Authority of India (NHAI) which is doing the maintenance works of Cauvery bridge is expecting to finish the work in the next two months. According to officials, the Z50 lath renovation project is likely to get finished before September Notably, the pedestrian paths at this bridge were damaged and a pilgrim to Samayapuram temple stepped on the broken slab. The slab immediate collapse and she fell down through the gaping space and died on spot. Her daughter was injured. This incident triggered immediate action from the side of the authorities and an expert team on April 19 accessed the pedestrian paths of this bridge. "We have decided to replace about 2000 slabs at the footpaths of the Cauvery bridge. So far we have replaced around 500 slabs at the foot the remaining would also be replaced in the coming days. We are expecting to finish it be-fore September," said Sankara Subramaniam, project director, Trichy Project Implementation Unit(PILT),NHAI

According to sources, after the incident the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Tiruchy region has done the inspection of all the bridges and culverts under its jurisdiction. Significantly, NHAI, Tiruchy regional handles about 1000 bridges and culverts. In fact, about 100 of them are major bridges. "After this incident, we inspect all the bridges and culverts under our jurisdiction. We have not found any safety issues at the bridges," said sources. Meanwhile, sources confirmed that NHAI would conduct anoth-er safety inspection after replac-ing the slabs. "If we ftd any issue we would take immediate steps to rectify it. Apart from the foot-path, the remaining portion of the bridge is safe, " said sources.

source: epaper. newindianexpress. com/c/29908191