The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) plans to construct over 35,000 metres of bridges over the next five years, said the BRO Director General, S. Ravi Shankar. The cost of building such a bridge would be Rs 6 lakh to Rs 10 lakh a metre.

Shankar was addressing a seminar on pre-engineered and quick launch bridges, organised by the BRO and the Indian Institution of Bridge Engineers.

Railway Board Chairman Vinay Mittal said quick-launch and pre-engineered bridges are vital for the railways, considering that 33,000 of the 133,000 bridges on the Indian Railways network were over 100 years old.

Such bridges would help reduce the gestation period of rail connectivity projects, where climate restricts working hours. Railways is also working on designing and assessing existing bridges for speeds of over 160 kmph.

Pre-fabricated bridges can play a major role in augmenting infrastructure, especially in difficult terrains in places such as Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East, Road Transport and Highways Minister C. P. Joshi said .

“We have challenging ground conditions in places such as Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir or the Northern and Eastern parts of India, which are prone to landslides and difficult terrain. In these areas, pre-engineered and quick-launch bridges can be of big help,” he said.

Joshi said the innovative technique of building a large number of components in a short span of time at low cost is fast picking up across the world. “In countries such as the US , Japan, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, this technique of building bridges is widely used,” he said.

The Indian road network consists of around one lakh bridges, of which about 15,000 are on National Highways.

mamuni.das@thehindu.co.in

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