When the news of a possible 3rd Mandovi bridge came to light, in 2014, lots were debated about the need for a 3rd bridge by several people from different designations. However with changing times and increasing traffic load, there came a need a new bridge.
Leaving all those conclusions aside, the 3rd Mandovi Bridge was finally unveiled on the 27th of January by Union minister for Road Transport and highways Shri Nithin Gadkari in presence of Honourable chief minister of Goa Shri Manohar Parrikar among other dignitaries. The inaugural event was also graced by over a thousand visitors who were excited to visit the new bridge.
Built at a cost of Rs 600 crores, the new bridge stands 70 metre high from the sea level and is 620 metres long. The bridge is 21 metres wide with 3.6 kms approaches on either side. The construction company Lasern and Tourbo have spent 1.1 million hours, 3.5 million machine hours, 10,000 metres of fabricated enabling steel, 6 sheets of segment launching tackles and 1.6 lakhs m2 of shuttering during construction period.
Speaking on the occasion Mr. Manohar Parrikar said that he travelled over the old Mandovi bridge 15-mins before it collapsed, at that time Goa didn’t have the required budget of 25,000 crores. Developing infrastructure with a small budget of 1500 crore would have taken 14 years to complete and still would not be complete. This is when we got the help of Union minister Mr Nithin Gadkari to complete the projects that instantly rendered his support to us. Parrikar also spoke about the negative attitude of the public who oppose each and every project and advised the public to be positive and stay positive.
A 100-ft National Flag stands tall in between the flyovers at Panjim KTC circle
The new bridge is expected to enable faster traffic movement for vehicles heading towards Mapusa, Porvorim, Vasco and Margao. The flyover begins at Pundalik nagar from the Porvorim side and ends just before the Merces circle on the Panjim side. Another flyover originates from the end of the Ponda Kadamba plateau highway towards the bridge, which incidentally is incomplete and will see the light of the day by 29th March.
The overwhelming response received from the ever increasing visitors has also forced the authorities concerned to defer the date for allowing traffic to ply on the bridge. It has now been announced that the bridge will be thrown open for traffic on the 4th of Febuary and the bridge shall be kept open for public to visit it till the 3rd of February.
Pic credits – Department of Information and Publicity facebook page