In A First for India, Bridge to be Built in 20 Days

If all goes according to the plan, the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) will finish building a road overbridge (ROB) in 20 days, a milestone for the country.

Work on this ROB, coming up in Valsad, is in full swing and set to be completed by June 22. The estimated cost of this project is Rs 4.5 crore.

“Around 75 per cent of construction work on this road overbridge was completed in just a week. The construction started on June 2. We are confident of finishing the work in 20 days,” said Shyam Singh, chief general manager of the WDFC.

He said the state government allowed road traffic block for 20 days for the purpose. Work is in progress as per our plans. He said four heavy-duty hydraulic cranes with capacity varying from 300 MT to 500 MT are being used to install these segments.

Usually, constructing such a road overbridge takes at least 100 days of non-stop work, but keeping in mind the importance of this road, which connects Valsad East to Valsad West, traffic closure for 100 days would not have been possible. “Hence, we switched over to precast and installation type of construction. This ROB is one of the busiest passages into Valsad city from the Mumbai-Delhi highway.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted construction activity, work in the Vaitarna–Sachin section of the Western DFC faced a bottleneck — where crossing a ROB near Valsad town in south Gujarat was difficult.

Considering the situation, the DFC initiated an innovative out-of-the-box approach to complete the work on the Valsad ROB in Gujarat on the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor with minimal traffic disruption.

Resource owners, skilled manpower and experts were convinced about the elaborate arrangements made at the site. Necessary arrangements have been made at the project site to tackle Covid-19, with isolation centres, oxygen cylinders, medicines and medical care staff on call.

“Construction of Western Dedicated Freight Corridor continued despite the pandemic, lockdowns and shortage of resources. The project team has demonstrated extreme resilience in dealing with hostile situations in the country. The team explored out-of-the-box solutions to overcome restraining ground conditions,” said an official of WDFC.

“The Western Dedicated Freight Corridor execution team deployed in the Vaitarana–Sachin section of Western Railway was challenged with the bottleneck of crossing ROB near Valsad town in south Gujarat almost 200 km away from Mumbai

. The ROB work could not be started due to various limitations, and track laying activities would have been adversely affected,” the official added.

The project team explored out-of-the-box solutions to overcome restraining ground conditions ­–A WDFC officer

The project team geared up to take up this challenge. After many brainstorming sessions, an innovative solution was arrived at. The solution proposed was to insert a twin precast box of 16m x 10m size on the approach of the ROB to take the
NTC

(new track construction) machine forward through it. The biggest challenge in doing this work was the road traffic block, as this ROB is one of the busiest passages into the city of Valsad from the Mumbai-Delhi highway. Hence, it was planned to complete the work in 20 days.

“Extensive arrangements were made for precasting these huge segments. Despite the lockdown and travel restrictions, a 100-strong team, including senior engineers, toiled day and night to finish the casting and launching works,” said an officer of WDFC, who is monitoring the project

Another challenge that was difficult to handle was solved by innovation in local handling of the segments. The precast segments are too big and heavy to operate without causing any internal stresses during handling.

The project team has designed a special carrier using a multi-axle trailer fitted with a steel platform. The fabrication of the steel platform was completely done at the site even during the period when the industrial oxygen supply was restricted in the country.

While China, Japan and a few Western countries often surprise the world by completing challenging projects in a record time, it is perhaps for the first time that a ROB is being built with such a speed in India.

In 2018, the Indian Army built a foot-over-bridge (FOB) connecting the Elphinstone Road and Parel stations in a record 117 days.

Source: India Times