E Arun and Tarun Kartick
Port Blair, June 25: The ‘Bridge of Hope’, a dream bridge between Bambooflat to Chatham is still a distant dream for people of South Andaman but the good news is that Andaman Public Works Department is presently finalizing a fresh project in this regard, which will be submitted soon to the Administration.
People of South Andaman region have been demanding a bridge between Bambooflat and Chatham since past many decades and last time when APWD had submitted a project in this regard with a plan to construct a bridge between the shorted points of these two regions, Hope Town and Chatham, the project was allegedly turned down by defence citing the excuse of obstruction in the movement of ships.
It has been learnt that the APWD is again working on the same mission and this time not just one but proposal for three alignments would be submitted to the Administration. The alignments would be Jugnlighat to Dandus Point or Minnie Bay to Dandus Point or Chatham to Hope Town.
“The process for the project is going on, once the technical capability is finalized we will submit the project to the administration, may be by end of July 2013. We will put up three alignments this time. We hope that by July 2014 Andaman and Nicobar Administration will surely take a decision on the best alignment and finalize the project,” Mr. Manoj Kumar Jha, EE (CD-II), APWD, Prothrapur told Andaman Sheekha today.
The actually picture may not be that rosy as it appears in media interview but the good news is that the project in not at all dead. Hope the Administration gets the reports soon and the report is finalized by 2014. Andaman Sheekha hopes that the ‘Bridge of Hope’ will become a reality and it would make life of people living in remote South Andaman Villages a little easy.
