RVNL gets night traffic block at Chinar Park for metro stn
Times of India | 17 October 2024Though no timeline has been set yet, an official said it would take RVNL at least eight months to complete the construction of the station’s concourse (first-level casting). The RVNL official claimed the work could have been completed in three months had police granted the traffic block at one go for 24 hours, instead of asking the agency to split the concourse slab casting in two phases and work only at night to ensure uninterrupted traffic during the day.
The station is coming up on a 140m×33m stretch ahead of the Chinar Park crossing in New Town.Before issuing an NOC to RVNL, Bidhannagar Traffic Police held two trials from Sept 16. RVNL has started cordoning a small part – 1.3m – of the New Town-bound flank. All this time, traffic could move along an 8.5m stretch there. The flank’s width has now been reduced to 7.2m. The length of the barricading is 140m.
TOI had reported on Sept 13 that the station’s design had to be changed as cops could give up only half the road from 11 pm to 5 am, the reason being encroachment by some eateries on pavement. It prevented RVNL from extending the road for traffic diversion.
“A continuous casting of the concourse of an elevated metro station is the usual engineering norm. A deviation from the norm may be considered a flawed design as there will be joints in the slab instead of continuity,” an engineer who has worked in DMRC said. Afcons Infrastructure, contracted for the Rs 533-crore package, comprising 3.5 km from City Centre II to the airport by Jan 31, ’24, has been struggling to complete the job. “Instead of getting a 33m×140m area in the middle of Biswa Bangla Sarani, the slab casting will be split in two phases. After half the concourse is cast, cops will hand over 16.5m×140m space,” an engineer said.
