SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture is mov­ing apace to re­pair di­lap­i­dat­ed bridges through­out the coun­try. Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine said bridges in a state of dis­re­pair will soon be a thing of the past. In a re­lease, Roop­nar­ine said in the last fi­nan­cial year sev­er­al bridges have been re­paired through the High­ways Di­vi­sion and the Pro­gramme for the Up­grade of Road Ef­fi­cien­cy (Pure).

She said in 2011 the min­istry launched its Bridges Re­con­struc­tion Pro­gramme (BRP). Ac­cord­ing to Roop­nar­ine, 92 bridges are tar­get­ed for re­pair be­tween the pe­ri­od 2012–2017, at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $1.35 bil­lion. She said Phase 1 of this pro­gramme com­menced in March 2012, with de­signs for 26 struc­tures. Ten­ders for the re­con­struc­tion of ten of these bridges were is­sued at the end of Sep­tem­ber 2012, while an ad­di­tion­al ten­der for one ad­di­tion­al bridge will be is­sued short­ly.

The bridges are sched­uled for con­struc­tion in Jan­u­ary 2013. Roop­nar­ine said de­sign doc­u­ments for the re­main­ing 15 bridges are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in No­vem­ber 2012 and con­struc­tion is sched­uled to com­mence in March 2013. Roop­nar­ine said she was hap­py to see land­slides be­ing fixed. She said last week the min­istry opened the Morne La Croix Road at Ari­ma that has been closed since 2011.

Ac­cord­ing to Roop­nar­ine,?"Land­slips cre­ate ma­jor in­con­ve­niences to com­mu­ni­ties as they cut off ac­cess to chil­dren from their schools and cre­ate trou­ble to those ac­cess­ing pub­lic trans­porta­tion."