The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Loss of face for GHMC

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 10, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Loss of face for GHMC

Scaffolding crash comes close on heels of Muslim Jung bridge fiasco

Punjagutta flyover behind schedule by seven months
Delays in shifting of underground utilities

PHOTO : P.V. Sivakumar.

Gruesome: The hands of a person inside the car on which the scaffolding fell at Punjagutta on Sunday. -

HYDERABAD: Sunday’s tragic mishap comes close on the heels of Muslim Jung bridge over River Musi developing cracks and noticed only days before it was about to be opened for traffic.

“Bad luck” observed officials then. But, Punjagutta flyover was supposed to be different, it was to be a showpiece project for the GHMC since it had a modern design and had reputed nationwide experts as consultants to oversee the work.

The nearly 2-km-long flyover costing over Rs. 30 crore is behind schedule by seven months.

Show-cause notice

Nearly two years since work began, it has been hit by delays in property acquisition and shifting of underground utilities. Gammon India, the contractor was also issued with show-cause notices for being slow.

Yet, recently the Government had revised rates in the view of rise in cement and steel prices to offset the purported losses suffered by the contractor.

For the first time in South India, pre-stressed, pre-segmented construction was adopted where foundation and pillars are done at the site while pieces that make the road is done elsewhere to avoid blocking traffic. Each of the segments weight two tonnes each.

Altogether 503 segments are to be used for the flyover and the entire sequence is simulated in the construction yard at Miyapur before being brought to the site one by one.

Initially, the then MCH had a tough time finding a contractor for the project because of the complicated nature of the construction.

Gammon India was chosen after a second round of tenders being called and after many negotiations. Steep curvature at the Punjagutta junction, huge water and sewerage pipelines underneath, sheet rock underneath, heavy traffic flow and the likes made it a tough task.

The ‘unidirectional combination’ flyover has the ‘main’ flyover starting from near the Chief Minister’s official residence cross over three junctions – Rajiv Gandhi statue, Punjagutta and Nagarjuna island. While one arm will drop at the entrance of Jalagam Vengal Rao Park, another span will drop beyond Chutneys restaurant.

Second part of the flyover will have up ramp for traffic coming from Jubilee Hills at the ICICI Bank and drops beyond Topaz building at Somajiguda.

After the Muslim Jung bridge fiasco probe, authorities had almost absolved all the supervising engineering personnel responsible for a “design default” and revoked their suspensions.

And with Punjagutta incident now, GHMC has to do a lot of explaining.

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