Ahmedabad: Circular foot overbridge going round in circles

The project to build the city's first circular foot overbridge with escalators was supposed to conclude in six months, but work is continuing four years on. Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA) is the executing agency.

With traffic volume growing on SP Ring Road in the city's east, the overbridge was planned around the elevated corridor of the Metro stretch in Vastral in January 2019. The plan includes four escalators and two lifts.

A tender of Rs 14.60 crore was floated and the contract with a revised estimate of Rs 17.93 crore was given to a private construction firm. September 2019 was the deadline.

"An ONGC gas line and other utility lines passed underneath the site. A new design was drawn up," an AUDA official said. "It took a year to complete the exercise. Then in 2020, the corona pandemic broke out."

Meanwhile, the construction firm ditched the project. AUDA sources said that the authority did not penalize the firm and another contractor stepped in. The project is likely to take one more year.