Kolkata: Work to bridge the last 56 metres of the Orange Line’s viaduct gap at Chingrighata will begin on Tuesday. Track-laying has started so that the corridor can reach Sector V (IT Centre station) this Pujas.The main bottleneck was resolved in May when concrete decks were successfully placed between pillars 317-318 and 318-319 over the busy Chingrighata crossing. The job was done over two weekends — May 15-18 and May 22-25 — after a 15-month impasse. Crew from implementing agency Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) managed to bridge the critical 62-metre viaduct (elevated concrete on which tracks are laid) gap with girder launches atop EM Bypass.Officials from Bidhannagar Police inspected the construction site on Tuesday. The last leg of the viaduct work will be done in two phases. Phase I will involve lifting a 25-metre span with the help of the 500 tonne girder-launcher positioned atop the under-construction viaduct and filling the space between piers 227 and 228. After this (Phase II), the girder-launcher will be taken away, and the 31-metre gap between piers 228 and 229 bridged with a different construction methodology — assembling precast segments of the deck piece by piece with the help of a crane.For the work starting Tuesday, Chingrighata flyover needn’t be shut as Salt Lake Bypass-bound traffic will zip down, turn slightly left along a new road RVNL has built.Meanwhile, RVNL is now advancing along the Salt Lake Bypass (Biswa Bangla Sarani) so that operations till Salt Lake Sector V can be commissioned, by laying tracks from pier 312 towards Chingrighata crossing. The mostly elevated New Garia-Airport corridor ducks 900 metres underground to enter the airport.
