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Rajendra Setu
Rail-cum-road bridge in Bihar, India From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Rajendra Setu, or Simaria Bridge, is a bridge across the Ganges that was the first to link the northern and southern portions of the state of Bihar.[1][2] The location of the bridge was based on the work of M. Visvesvaraya, who was more than 90 years old at the time.[3][4] In a wheelchair, he visited the bridge site on the special request of Bihar's chief minister, Shri Krishna Sinha. It was the first bridge over the Ganges to be built in independent India.
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The foundation stone of this bridge was laid by Dr Rajendra Prasad on 26 February 1956 in the seventh year of India's independence.
The road-cum-rail bridge near Hathidah in Patna district and Simaria in Begusarai district was inaugurated in 1959 by Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India, and Shri Krishna Sinha.[5] The bridge was constructed by Braithwaite, Burn & Jessop Construction Company. It is about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) long and carries a two-lane road and a single-line railway track.[6][7][8]
A new bridge, carrying the four-lane NH 31 and double-track rail, 25 metres upstream from the existing rail and road bridge, was planned in 2011.[9]
The construction of the new parallel double-line railway bridge was inaugurated by prime minister Narendra Modi on 12 March 2016.[10][11] The new 1.9 km railway bridge was supposed to be operational by February 2021,[12] but is now expected to be operational by 2024. The contract for construction of the new bridge was awarded to M/s AFCONS Infrastructure Ltd by the Indian Railway Construction International Limited (IRCON) on an EPC contract basis. Construction has also started on a new six-lane road bridge, which has a span of 34 metres, parallel to it, which is supposed to become operational by December 2024.
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