Bhubaneswar: June 19: The passengers are increasing day by day in Bhubaneswar Station and the existing two (02) Nos. of Foot Over Bridges are inadequate to cater to the requirement. An additional Foot Over Bridge (FOB) was highly essential to address this problem. In view of above, 3rd Foot Over Bridge of with 6 mtrs width was proposed and got sanctioned by Railway Board on 17th January -2018.
The work was commenced immediately. There were several challenges during planning and execution of work like dismantling of Platform Shelters, shifting of Over Head Equipments (OHE) portal and diversion of cables. Working in day time for this work was very difficult as Bhubaneswar Station being a capital Station is highly busy and full of passengers. It was planned to execute most of the work in night time to avoid disturbances.
Firstly, Signal and Telecom/Electrical cables were shifted to avoid disturbance of traffic if any cables get damaged during earthwork for foundation. Dismantling of PF shelter was done and foundation work started. The site protection has been carried out properly to avoid inconvenience to passengers.
The movement of material and machinery at island platform was also very critical and all protections were taken during transportation of materials. The girders were fabricated in workshop and simultaneously the other works were in process at site. There are three (03) Nos. of girders between PF No. 6 to 4&5, PF No.4&5 to 3&2 and PF No. 2&3 to 1.
The 1st girder of length 23969 mm was launched on 15th April-2018, 2nd girder of length 23250 mm was launched on 28th April-2018 & the 3rd girder of length 22854 mm was launched on 19th May-2018. The launching of girders was done by 300 Tonne Road Crane. The erection of columns, construction of stairs, laying of precast slabs, sheeting, tiling and other related works were executed simultaneously as per planning. The total expenditure for this FOB was 4.00 Crore.
Due to the active monitoring of Divisional Railway Manager Shri Braj Mohan Agarwal and efforts of Engineering Team led by Divisional Engineer Ravi Prakash Yadav, the work has been completed in 150 days from the sanction of work by Railway Ministry. Formal inauguration of the FOB will be made later. It is worthwhile to mention here that General manager/East Coast Railway Shri Umesh Singh had set a target of 6 months for the team at Khurda Road. However, they finished the work much ahead of schedule.
