Shiradi Ghat stretch concreting done; to open in July

Uppinangady: The 12.38-km ghat stretch from Kempuhole to Addahole on Shiradi Ghat has been successfully concretized and near to completion. The work taken up by the National Highway division of the Public Works Department as a part of Phase 2 of the Shiradi Ghat stretch.

The stretch of national highway between Kempuhole and Addahole has been completed and its curing is underway. The road is likely to be thrown open for the traffic from first week of July.

The work on extending three bridges is in the final stage and only a 600-metre stretch to connect the bridges is pending, whereas the work on 77 culverts has also been completed.

74 crore rupees were sanctioned by the government for the second phase work of Shiradi Ghat. Since the commencement of the concretization work along the stretch, vehicle movement was banned from January 20^th.

The incessant rain in May at Shiradi Ghat played a spoilsport and affected the pace of the work. The superintendent engineer of the National Highway division of Public Works Department said that if the rain stops for two days, the pending work could be completed. “Only a portion of the stretch that connects bridge is yet to be concreted. By all means, vehicular movement is likely to be allowed in the first week of July,” he said.

Ocean Construction India Pvt Ltd was granted the contract for the work. To facilitate the work of the first phase which began in 2016, the contractor procured a new machine worth 7.5 crore rupees from Germany. For Phase 2 of the work, the contractor procured machines worth Rs 10 crore from Germany including a Texture Curing Machine (TCM).

The TCM, concrete curing is simplified which helped in the early completion of the work. The then PWD minister had inaugurated the concretized 11.77 km stretch of the ghat road from Heggadde to Kempuhole at the cost of 69-90 crore rupees in the first phase of the work on August 9^th, 2015.