The state government has urged IIT Roorkee to conduct a detailed "model study" of the area where a 5 km long bridge connecting Mekhliganj and Haldibari in Cooch Behar over river Teesta is coming up.
It has often been found that longevity of the bridges constructed over rivers in north Bengal are badly hit because of incessant rainfall and flood. In a bid to overcome the problem, the step has been taken so that the new bridge is able to withstand floods and at the same time incessant rainfall with heavy wind speed year after year.
According to sources at Nabanna, a preliminary discussion with authorities of IIT Roorkee has already taken place in this regard and experts will take around one-and-a-half month to carry out the model study.
Though construction of the bridge was a long-standing demand of the locals and it was first planned during the regime of the erstwhile Left Front government, it had not been possible to execute the plan for various reasons mainly due to shortage of fund. Finally in October 2016, the state Public Works Department (PWD) has begun the construction work of the state's longest bridge that would come up at a cost of whopping Rs 400 crore.
"Certain essential studies have been carried out before starting the construction work. But now the necessity of undertaking a model study has been felt to ensure that we can build a
foolproof bridge keeping all aspects intact. We may have to make certain changes in our plan, that we call "fine tuning" in terms of engineering, after receiving the report from the IIT Roorkee, which is considered to be the best in the country to carry out such studies," said a state government official.
Since the terrain where the bridge is being constructed is a bit different and the bridge along with embankments has to be build on 5.5 km-wide river, the study will be carried out to find that what could be the maximum level of water in the river during floods and the maximum speed at which the water could flow in such a situation from the area.
Since construction of a bridge and embankment on a part of the river causes hindrance to the normal flow, it would also be studied
whether there is possibility of sand getting eroded from the river bed.
It may be mentioned that there is human settlement on river islands which have come up in between the river in that region.
There are some barrages on the river including one at Gazoldoba. Thus, there is a need to find out the volume of water that may pass through the region in during Monsoon.
"The experts will be using a technique to assess the volume of water that may pass in the presence of barrages as well as of those which didn't exist," the official said.
Lakhs of people will be benefitted with the construction of the bridge as at present, one needs to cover a distance of 75 km to reach Mekhliganj that houses most of the government offices in the district from Haldibari.
The distance would come down to only 5.5 km with the completion of the construction of the bridge. According to the official, two-and-a-half years has been set as a target to complete the same.