Assam's Old Saraighat Bridge to Close Partially for Three Months

Guwahati: The Northeast Frontier Railway (NF Railway) has said that the old Saraighat Bridge over the Brahmaputra river would be closed for vehicular traffic in phases (part by part) for three months from today (June 4) for repair and maintenance work.

"We are not closing the entire stretch of the bridge. We are doing the repair work in phases, part by part so that we do not have to stop vehicular movement completely. We have to do some rubber fixing work. When the work in one part is getting done we will close only that part, traffic would continue on the other side," a senior NFR official said.

The bridge was under maintenance in 2019 but the entire repair and maintenance work could not be completed then. It is the remaining work that is being done now, the officials added.

For repairing means rubber pitching over the road portion of the Old Saraighat Bridge. The State authority (both DCs) have agreed for partial block of the Bridge and deputed Traffic Police for traffic diversion/regulation.

The work has been planned span-wise and blocking only half width of the span. Total 11 spans are there in Bridge and only 1 span is partially blocked (half width only) for taking up the repairs. Railway is working in the Curfew time only i.e. from 12:00 noon upto 02:00 am, to cause minimum inconvenience to public. The work stops at 02:00hrs and the mastic asphalt is allowed to cool down for about 3 hours, before the traffic resumes at 05:00hrs.

Last time on average, 75 workers per day were engaged in breaking the slabs and 45 workers were engaged in carrying these broken pieces away and doing the cleaning work.

As per the sources, after breaking down the old concrete slabs and expanding the joint slabs, fresh 10mm thick steel plates were laid and welded to the bridge, over which high-strength concrete was laid to make the deck slabs. More than 500 tons of steel plates and reinforcement rods have been used for the deck slabs alone. To make driving over the bridge comfortable even at high speed and ease out the bumps over the expansion joints, 150 mm thick aluminium plates were laid over them under the heavy-duty semi-dense bituminous concrete. Road markings, painting of side beams, side railing and fixing of car eyes were also done to give the structure an organic facelift.

Started in 1959, the construction of the old Saraighat Bridge, which is the oldest rail-cum-road bridge across the Brahmaputra in Assam, was completed in 1962. After that, it played a vital role during the India-China War. The bridge was opened for public use on June 7, 1963.

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