Pune: Commuters in Koregaon Park, VVIP Circuit House, Bund Garden, and Wadia College areas will have to wait five more months because Sadhu Vaswani bridge is unlikely to complete before Dec 2026.Civic chief Naval Kishore Ram on Tuesday inspected the bridge work, and directed the officials to finish the pending portion of the bridge by Dec-end. Ram said he plans to review the progress every month to maintain the speed at the work.The new bridge is replacing the old Sadhu Vaswani bridge. The work, however, has been hampered because of technical challenges, especially shifting a water pipeline crossing the railway tracks from above. The new bridge will have four lanes and footpaths on both sides. A team of experts had recommended demolition of the earlier bridge, as it was not fit to handle traffic of heavy vehicles.Thousands of vehicles have been regularly diverted to assist the work. Commuters said they have been facing hardships owing to the diversions, and they wanted the bridge to be ready at earliest.During Tuesday’s visit, Ram reviewed the technical complexity of the project. He asked for the coordinated efforts by various departments and completion of work by the end of Dec. Officials from PMC’s special projects department said the overhead water pipeline at the railway span, which was obstructing the work, has now been laid underground. Also, the work of removing the existing overhead truss structure at the railway span has been undertaken; this work has been planned to be completed within a week.“The launching of a 54-meter-long Open Web Girder was planned to be completed by the end of Sept. After that, the construction of the remaining spans of the bridge will be taken up. The original work period of the project was expected to be two and a half years, and the administration planned to complete it within the period from the date of commencement of the actual work”, officials said.
