Is traffic diversion a plan to help contractor?

MARGAO: Why is the government determined to divert the traffic along the Verna-Cortalim road? According to the authorities, the installation of the box girders, the rectangular hollow concrete boxes as the means of supporting its deck, poses a risk to the traffic passing along the existing highway. However, the Zuari bridge is not the only bridge in the State that has faced a similar situation.

The third Mandovi bridge faced a similar issue which the contractors overcame without diverting the traffic. The road along the Assembly Complex is around 25-30 metres wide between hill slopes on either side, yet the contractor was able to carry out the work without diverting traffic.

The contractor in the case of the Zuari bridge currently has access to a wide area ranging from 40 to 45 metres. Both contractors are using a similar technology for constructing the bridge. In both projects, the girders are fabricated offsite and are transported to the location using hydraulic trailers along with bolsters or cranes. There they are lifted using a crane and placed on temporary falsework supported by the steel girder or installed using the technique of incremental launching using gantry cranes. In the case of the Mandovi bridge, the gantry was used along the Assembly complex road wherein new segments were connected to the completed portions of the bridge. This method uses far less space as compared to the temporary falsework. 

However, in either case, the transportation of the girders to the site remains a challenge since traffic has to be blocked. In the case of the Mandovi bridge, this transportation was carried out at night. So why can’t the contractor of the Zuari bridge do the same?

PWD officials said that the contractor of the Zuari bridge had not mentioned the traffic diversion in their project plan. “In the case of the Mandovi bridge, the consultant and the contractor are hired separately by the Goa government. It is the responsibility of the consultant to 

foresee such issue and prepare plans along with contingencies. In the case of Zuari bridge, the contract was such that the contractor has to hire the consultant and all this happens at a national level. After being appointed, they come to talk to us but we don’t have much authority here to force them to do anything,” the PWD official said.

The official hinted that the contractor is probably running out of time and therefore wants to speed up the construction work. “If the contractor fails to construct it on time, they may have to pay a penalty. There is no other reason for such an ad-hoc decision for diverting traffic,” he said. If the work has to speed up, the transportation of the girders has to be carried out round the clock. The only other option is to expand the current road by acquiring the surrounding fields thus adding a significant cost to the exchequer and destroying the fertile land of Cortalim.

With the traffic diversion due to the Zuari bridge all set to snowball into a major campaign with citizens groups, tourism stakeholders and opposition parties gearing up to take on the BJP-MGP-GFP government, the authorities have to choose between the welfare of the people, destroying the livelihood of farmers of Cortalim or saving the contractor from a severe penalty in case they are not able to meet the deadline for completion.