Hero Image

Smooth ride to Kanhan from city soon

Nagpur: Work being executed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the Public Works Department (PWD) on the Nagpur-Kanhan section is nearing completion and soon, travelling to Kanhan will be hassle-free.

NHAI is building a 18-kilometre long four lane cement road from Automotive Square to Kanhan at the cost of Rs254 crore.

It is 80% complete and will be ready by February 2021. PWD is building a new bridge on the Kanhan River which does not intersect the railway line at a cost of Rs28 crore. This will be opened for traffic in October.

NHAI project officer Abhijit Jichkar said that the ministry of defence had finally agreed to allow use of its land for road widening. This was the outcome of a meeting between union transport minister Nitin Gadkari and defence minister Rajnath Singh.

“We got the permission to build road on Kamptee Cantonment land about a month ago. Since then, work is on in full swing. The road is almost complete in the remaining stretch. Last to be completed will be the railway underbridge (RUB) at Uppalwadi. Here we have shifted water pipelines that were laid below it,” said Jichkar.

PWD executive engineer Naresh Borkar said that the work of the new bridge was complete and now it was being linked with NHAI’s four-lane road. “We will start tarring the bridge after rains and open it for traffic in October. The length of the bridge is 415 metres and it is a two-lane structure with maximum width of 16m. It has footpaths on both sides for pedestrians,” he added.

Borkar said that the biggest advantage of the bridge was that those using it will not have to stop at the railway crossing. “Kanhan lies on the Howrah-Mumbai line and trains regularly block road traffic at the crossing,” he added.

The bridge has six spans of 55m and two end spans of 40m. It’s a box type girder structure using pre-stressed girders. Work on the bridge started late because of land acquisition problems. PWD had to acquire railway land on one end and that belonging to Porwal School on the other. There was some private land on the river bed too.

READ ON APP