Widened RoB to bring respite to students and residents in Puttur
The 11.8-metre-wide new bridge, connecting campuses of Vivekananda Institutions, has replaced the erstwhile 3.8-metre-wide RoB with dedicated 1.5-metre-wide crash-barrier protected footpaths on both the sides
Students of Vivekananda Group of Educational Institutions and residents of Nehru Nagar and surrounding areas at Puttur in Dakshina Kannada district can heave a sigh of relief from Wednesday, as the South Western Railway will throw open the widened Road Over Bridge (RoB) on Vivekananda College-Bannur-Haradi Road.
Road users, including thousands of students walking to their colleges, used to have a harrowing time while crossing the narrow 3.8 metres RoB over the Mangaluru-Bengaluru Railway line on the road from Mani-Mysuru National Highway 275 to Vivekananda campus and further towards Bannur. The road later joins the Puttur-Uppinangady State Highway thus acting as an outer ring road for Puttur Town.
After persistent demand by people and the initiative of people’s representatives, the SWR nally took up the work to widen the RoB in December 2023 at an estimated cost of 5.4 crore. Social and Railway activist Dinesh Bhat of Puttur said that initially the SWR wanted the State government to bear half the price and later it decided to bear the full cost.
The new RoB has a total width of 11.8 metres with a 7.5 metre carriageway for vehicles and 1.5 metreswide footpaths on both sides. The footpaths are provided with concrete crash barriers to protect pedestrians, particularly students if any vehicle happens to hit the sides of the RoB. The structure is a 24metres span composite girder RoB thereby providing sucient space beneath for doubling the existing railway line, said an ocial of the SWR.
The SWR has also concreted the approach roads to the RoB for a length of about 100 metres on either side, the ocial added.
Long-pending demand
Students as well as the residents of Nehru Nagar had been demanding a wider RoB for over a decade. Mr. Bhat said he had submitted a memorandum with over one thousand signatures to the Railway Minister in 2016. Many students and residents, including Karthik Shenoy, Chaitra Baipadavu, Brijesh Naik, Shrinivas Shenoy and others had also launched a Twitter (as it was then) campaign in 2018 in this regard.
Mr. Bhat told The Hindu that road users would be relieved when the RoB gets commissioned on Wednesday. Railway activist Sudarshan Puttur too actively participated in the struggle for the new RoB.