PANAJI/VASCO
In a flip-flop, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who visited the site for an inspection on Thursday morning first said the "completed" right hand side branch of the new Zuari bridge will be inaugurated by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Boxing Day (December 26) and thrown open to the public by midnight. However, by evening he announced that the inauguration is postponed to December 29 due to unavailability of the Union Minister.
The inaugural event will now be held from 6 to 9 pm on the cable-stayed bridge itself.
Speaking to reporters at the site after a joint inspection along with PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral and other officials Sawant said, "Gadkari is the real architect of the bridge and it is through his vision that got Goa such infrastructure under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.
Initially, the Chief Minister's announcement that Gadkari will inaugurate the bridge on December 26 and that it will be thrown open at midnight had seemingly brought in a sigh of relief to thousands of Goan commuters who faced hardships of traffic snarls for nearly two years.
However the evening announcement drew widespread criticism on social media with commuters, particularly those travelling on a daily basis, having to wait for three more days.
The bridge will connect North and South Goa and the length of this bridge is 13.2 kms while the elevated length is 8.20 kms. The total project is taken up at a cost of Rs 2,530 crores.
“We invite all the people to attend the inauguration. The second phase of the project will take some time but we are opening the first phase for motorists considering the traffic congestion witnessed at the Cortalim area", said Sawant.
Meanwhile, during his site visit, Sawant snapped at queries from journalists if the bridge would have a name.
"It’s Zuari bridge. Why everything needs to have a name?” Sawant shot back to the question from a journalist who asked in the backdrop of the controversy surrounding the naming of the Mopa airport as Manohar International Airport in memory of former chief minister the late Manohar Parrikar.
The PWD, meanwhile, has issued detailed guidelines on the vehicular movement and restrictions on the two bridges -- the existing 'old' bridge and the new one to be inaugurated by Gadkari on December 29.
The guidelines said, the completed 'Right Hand Side' branch of the New Zuari bridge on NH66 will be opened for traffic from December 30, that is from midnight.
The PWD guidelines said, from that hour, the old Zuari bridge will be a "one-way" for light vehicles with a maximum laden weight of 12 tonnes travelling from Panjim side to the Margao-Mormugao side.
On the new RHS branch of the Zuari Bridge, only one lane (the left-most lane) will be open to heavy vehicles with laden weight above 12-tonnes travelling from Panjim side to the Margao-Mormugao side.
The remaining three lanes of the RHS branch of the new Zuari bridge will be for one-way traffic irrespective of load of vehicles travelling from the Margao-Mormugao side to the Panjim side.
The PWD said, the restrictions for entry of heavy vehicles of more than 12-tonnes laden weight on the old Zuari bridge will be enforced with the help of height barrier which has already been erected on the Agassaim side of the bridge.
Meanwhile the Left-Hand-Side branch of the New Zuari Bridge is expected to take at least another year to complete.
Cabral, who was speaking to journalists at the site on Thursday morning said, the government is hoping to complete and commission it by early 2024.
