Karimnagar: Carriageway, approach road of cable-stayed bridge damaged

Karimnagar: Hard on the heels of the incident of cracks on the side walls of the newly-constructed cable-stayed bridge three months ago, the carriageway of the facility was damaged and its approach road also caved in, forcing the traffic into contraflow in Karimnagar on Monday.

The photos and videos of the damaged carriageway were widely circulated on social media platforms.

The officials placed huge barricades closing the affected lane off to the traffic coming from Warangal as the approach road from Karimnagar was totally battered. Only two-wheelers were allowed to use the other carriageway of the bridge built across the Manair River.

Three months ago, at the behest of IT minister K.T. Rama Rao, who inaugurated the bridge in June, BC welfare minister Gangula Kamalakar took up the repair works of the damaged protection walls and the approach road temporarily for the sake of inauguration of the bridge, which was designed by Bangkok-based company and constructed by TATA and Turkey-based company Glumark.

BJP Karimnagar Assembly segment convenor D. Srinivas, speaking to Deccan Chronicle, alleged that the state government had taken up the project and constructed it using cheap quality material for the sake of commissions, leading to the damage of the approach road and the carriageway, hardly three months after its inauguration. He expressed concern over the fate of the approach road in the coming summer. He questioned the government’s negligence in the construction of the Rs 224-crore bridge which took more than six years.

Alleging that shoddy construction works led to the damage, Karimnagar City Congress president Komatireddy Narendar Reddy quipped that the bridge was built only for people taking photos but not to ease traffic congestion in the route.
The users of the bridge and the approach road concerned about their construction quality.