KOLKATA: The state government has started drawing up the rudimentary plan , on the basis of which consultants will study and formulate the detailed project report (DPR) for the new Majerhat bridge.The new bridge could be around 15m wide, around 5m broader than the earlier one. The 15m span will include a median, about a metre wide, and two flanks, 7m each. The stretch that fell was around 10m wide and 36m long. The new bridge will accommodate four lanes, two each on either side of the median.Engineers working on the draft plan decided on the above specifications after assessing the current vehicular count on the bridge and the enhanced number of vehicles that are expected to ply on the structure some 70 years later. When Majerhat bridge was being built (construction started from January, 1962) and thrown open to public on September 30, 1964, around 34,000 vehicles would use it. Before the structure fell, around 1 lakh to 1.2 lakh vehicles used to ply on it regularly.“Seventy years later, the vehicular count on the bridge should be around 2.7 lakhs. The original width of the bridge can’t be retained because it won’t be able to accommodate such huge number of cars, buses and trucks. So the new structure must be wider, and stronger,” said an official.The figure was arrived at based on a 2017 study on cars and buses plying on Majerhat bridge, ahead of the Garden Reach flyover inauguration in March this year. The new flyover, that connects Diamond Harbour Road near Majerhat and Brooklyn Crossing and Garden Reach with an expected time to cross the stretch in 15 minutes, was believed to be sharing Majerhat bridge’s load to some extent. Hence, PWD undertook the study on the number of vehicles plying on Majerhat bridge to assess the sharing potential of the new flyover.Last Friday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the entire span of Majerhat bridge will be pulled down and a new one will be built within a year. While work of pulling down the remaining portions of the bridge is just about to start, PWD officials are unwilling to waste time and have gone into a huddle trying to figure out the finer points of the new bridge so that the consultant to be engaged by the government to do a study could get cracking at once.Land for the wider structure won’t be an issue as it is available on both sides of the rail overbridge at Majerhat, officials said. “All we need is permission from the railways. This will be a mere formality given the magnitude of the disaster that has taken place,” said an official. Since Majerhat bridge is part of NH 117, the National Highways Authority of India will also be taken on board for acquiring the additional parcel of land and other nitty gritties.Engineers said the deck slab of the new bridge would have fewer girders, may be five or six as against the 40-plus girders that comprised the 36m span that fell. (Girders are components that support the bridge or flyover from underneath, to transfer the load on the surface to the foundation through the piers).“The new bridge will be built in such a way that it doesn’t develop load fatigue like the previous one, which fell in its 54th year”, said an engineer.

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