AGARTALA, January 16 (TIWN): Tripura Public Work Department (PWD) issued a reminder to the Industry and commerce Department that act as a nodal agency to the state for the proposed four-lane bridge on Feni River in Tripura that would connect the state's South district with Chittagong division in Bangladesh. The alignment and the survey for the construction of the proposed bridge over the River Feni is all set fom the Indian side, said state PWD Engineer in Chief Sunil Bhowmik recently. Talking to the reporters at the civil secretariat recently the PWD Engineer in Chief Sunil Bhowmik said that the Indian side has finished with the survey and the alignment has been fixed for the construction of the proposed four lane bridge over the River Feni at the South District. The official said that the Direct Project Report (DPR) will be ready by the last of this month. Adding to that he said that the DPR was supposed to be readied by January 15 but the delay in conducting the survey has delayed the DPR.

  Mr. Bhowmik further said that at least three alternative bridge designs has also been made. However, “we are now awaiting for the formal permission of the nodal agency”, said Bhowmik.  

It is mentionable here that The decision to construct the bridge with four-lane facilities was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS).The bridge will be 150 metres long and will be constructed at a cost of Rs 73 crore. Tripura has been lobbying for the bridge since 2005.

The Feni bridge is expected to draw a significant segment of the proposed economic corridor through India, Bangladeshi, China and Myanmar. The final decision was reported to have kept provisions for construction of a 15 Mt wide four-lane bridge with four-lane approach roads on both sides, 1.5 Mt wide footpath on both sides for smooth traffic movement including other state-of-art facilities.