ITANAGAR, 4 Aug: PWD Highway Chief Engineer (CE) S Sumnyan on Wednesday visited the underpass construction site in Bank Tinali here and reviewed the progress of work.
The Itanagar capital region (ICR) administration had set 15 August as the deadline to complete the work. However, after reviewing the work, the CE said that it might not be practically possible to complete the work by 15 August.
“Various factors, including Covid pandemic and monsoon, have delayed the underpass work. Also, a lot of technicalities have gone into the design and planning of this project. We should not rush the work and later put ourselves in trouble,” said the CE.
He informed that the revised target given to the contractor for completion of the underpass is September. “But in the interest of the public, we want to complete it before that. We understand the problems faced by the public due to the construction of the underpass, and we will make every effort to complete the work within August,” he said.
Sumnyan said that a new culvert which has been laid is also one of the reasons for the delay in completion of the work. “This culvert was not part of the original design. It was incorporated at the last moment, and this has delayed the progress,” he said.
Meanwhile, PWD Highway Executive Engineer Nani Tath informed that pre-construction activities have started for Package B (Papu Nallah to Nirjuli) and Package C (Nirjuli to Banderdewa) of the four-lane highway project in the ICR.