Many reasons contributed to the work stoppage—the sanitary pipeline, the bursting of a manhole, heavy rains and storm water drainage work.

The Rs six-crore project, a joint venture between the City's Maruti Construction and Malaysia's Green Hands Construction, will make the life of pedestrians a lot easier. "The sanitary pipeline, that has a diameter of 600 mm and reaches a depth of 5.5 metres, proved to be a major obstruction in the work. The approval for shifting the pipeline was obtained from the administration on Thursday," said a highly placed source.

The pipeline will now go across Avenue Road and in front of Chandra Bhavan. The contract for the utility shifting process has been handed over to the same team which is carrying out the project and is expected to be completed within two months, he added.

“We did not envisage the pipeline to pose such a big hurdle during project conceptualisation and thought only two inches of it will pose a problem,” another official said.  Apart from the problem the pipe posed, a manhole burst open and sanitary water from it rushed into the pit where work was being carried out. Heavy rains aggravated the situation forcing us to stop work,” the official added.

“Even work in the pre-cast yard also came to a standstill due to desilting and other work related to storm water drainage being carried out here,” the source said. The subway is expected to be completed within eight to ten months after the pipe is rerouted. Right now, the basic soling, plain cement concrete and waterproofing work have been completed, he said.

The pedestrian subway will run to a total length of 120 metres and possess a walking width of 9 metres. It will link up with the existing subway built over three decades ago. It holds pride of place as it is the first subway in the country to deploy a unique technology in its construction—the pre-cast technology.

This technology involves two steps done simultaneously. The concrete bed for the subway is prepared at the spot where the subway will come up while the arch is being readied separately at a casting yard near the Binny Mills road. Two moulds have been shipped from Malaysia for the purpose of creating the elements of the arch. Cushion filling with good earth will be done over the arch and it will be shifted to the bed later. A total of 53 elements of the arch have been readied so far.

Once completed, it will indeed prove to be a boon for pedestrians as those proceeding to the bus stand from all the four sides--the City Market, Apsara theatre, Victoria Hospital and Chandra Bhavan will no longer need to cross the City Market Circle. It will also ease traffic flow as the cycling of the signal for pedestrians can be done away with.