look news india
Dhamtari, September 23 (HS). Chief Engineer, Bridge Zone Raipur ML Uraav inspected the water bridge constructed on Mahanadi river at 10/10 km of Kurud-Megha-Magarlod road of the district on Monday. It was found that Megha bridge has been damaged due to excessive sand mining. On this occasion, he informed that the water bridge was constructed by the then Bridge Division Raipur in June 1994. The length of the bridge is 977.136 meters.
As per the rules of the works department manual, the half-yearly inspection of the bridge was done before the rainy season. During the inspection, the condition of the bridge was found to be satisfactory. He informed that at present, excessive sand mining has been done on both sides of U,S and D,S near the bridge, due to which the D-S's kaccha apron (part leveled with boulders) got eroded due to the fast flow of water during the rainy season. He also informed that due to the erosion of the kaccha apron, the pucca apron (part leveled with concrete) got exposed above the normal ground level to a depth of about 2.00 m to 2.50 m, due to which the D-S cutoff wall got damaged and settled down in a length of about 150 m.
Due to the damage of the kaccha and pakka aprons and excessive flow of water during rainy season, the boulders and sand started flowing from under the bottom slab of the box type submersible bridge and the portion below the bottom slab became hollow. The said bridge was a floating foundation based bridge, in which the entire structure is protected by the cutoff wall and the depth of the cutoff wall is three meters, in which 2.50 meters of the cutoff wall opened due to sand extraction. In the said situation also, due to the traffic flowing on the bridge, some part of the bridge has settled down and as much as the cutoff wall has broken, there is a possibility of additional box collapse. He said that the said bridge cannot be used for residential purposes.
People from 30 villages come and go
Urava said that this route is a very important main district road, on which people of 30 villages towards Kurud and Megha, whose population is 69 thousand 57, travel daily. In case of damage to the said bridge, the general public on the Megha side will have to cover an additional distance of about 20 km to reach the district headquarters, due to which the general public will have to face extreme difficulties. In the U/S of the said constructed bridge, a provision of Rs 120 lakh is included in the budget for the year 2023-24 for the construction of a new high-level bridge, whose boring work has been completed and GAD has been prepared. The estimate is being prepared and sent for necessary approval. Executive Engineer Bridge Corporation Vivek Shukla and Sub-Divisional Officer KK Yadav were present at the time of inspection.