Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Dec 27: National Highway Authority of India is all set to commission 75 percent of four-lane Jammu-Udhampur road for vehicular traffic in first week of the new year.
Excluding a few small stretches of the road, tunnels at Nandni and one of the Jhajjar Kotli bridges, the entire 64.58 km long Jammu-Udhampur National Highway is almost ready for commissioning, official sources informed the Excelsior.
Final layer of bitumen is being laid on the widened road as finishing touch to the ongoing work, which is likely to be completed within a week following which more than 75 percent of the Jammu-Udhampur National Highway will be thrown open for vehicular traffic, sources added.
The commissioning of 75 percent of the widened National Highway six months ahead of the deadline for completion of the project will make driving more smooth on the road and also lessen the time taken to cover the distance from Jammu to Udhampur.
June 2014 is the deadline for execution of the Jammu-Udhampur road widening project, which is part of the NHAI’s flagship project of four-laning Jammu-Srinagar National Highway with May 2016 as the deadline.
Notwithstanding delay in starting the tunnel work at Nandni due to late clearance by the Wildlife Protection Board, some hiccups in getting Forest clearance for 1.5 kilometer long stretch at Udhampur Bye Pass Point, acquisition of around two kilometer long stretch at village Jakheni and time consuming process in construction of second bridge at Jhajjar Kotli, the NHAI is fully confident of meeting the deadline for Jammu- Udhampur project worth Rs 2400 crore, said R P Singh, Project Director National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Jammu.
This will be first project in the country in hilly terrain to be substantially completed ahead of scheduled date of completion, he informed.
The executing agency has successfully completed one of the four (T1) tunnels and more than 70 percent work on tunnel T3 has been finished, R P Singh disclosed adding that work on tunnels T2 and T4, started a few months back, is likely to be completed by September 2014.
Among all the tunnels, T4 has the maximum length of 540 meters followed by T3 (330 meters), T2 (300 meters) and T1 (210 meters). December 2014 is the deadline for completion of work on these tunnels.
For timely completion of the other pending works on affected stretches, the NHAI has set target of April 2014 for 500 meter long Jhajjar Kotli bridge, February 2014 for the portion under Ramnagar Wildlife Area, March 2014 for shifting of Army Traffic Check Post in Sitleen and dismantling of two shops on Forest Land, April 2014 for dismantling of shops and other structures in Jhajjar Kotli village, April 2014 for Manthal and Tikri with difficult terrain having retaining walls up to 28 m height, April 2014 for the two bridges on Udhampur Bye Pass (two lanes completed and remaining two in progress).
The Jammu-Udhampur National Highway consists of 3 bypasses, including Jammu Bye Pass (5.12 km), Nagrota Bye Pass (11.7 kms) and Udhampur Bye Pass (18.19 kms). The entire stretch has 64 major 2-lane bridges, 61 minor two lane bridges/underpasses, 4 twin tube tunnels of aggregate length 2.80 km and 220 culverts.
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