Bengaluru: Stalled Devanagonthi bridge becomes monument to official ineptness

New Delhi: At the Devanagonthi level crossing in Bengaluru, a half-constructed road over bridge (ROB) exists as an eyesore and a monument to official ineptness.

Begun over a decade ago as part of a railways’ effort to eliminate level crossings, work on the bridge has stalled due to a lack of coordination between the railways and the state government. 

The uncompleted structure has now got the attention of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, who flagged the issue in its latest report that was tabled in Parliament. 

In 2011, South Western Railways (SWR) proposed to build an ROB to replace level crossing between the Devanagonthi-Whitefield railway line on a cost-sharing basis with the state government. The ROB would also help in the smooth movement of vehicles on the road connecting Kanekal cross to Hoskote of Bengaluru Rural district.

As per a 2009 estimate, this level crossing had 1.6 lakh train-vehicle units (the number of train units multiplied by the number of road-vehicle units in a day) — a measure of how busy a level crossing is.

The cost of ROB was estimated at Rs 24.27 crore, in which the railways’ share was Rs 10.29 crore and the remaining Rs 13.98 crore was to be borne by the state government.

The road-over-bridge would be built by the railways and the approach road to the bridge would be built by the PWD department of the state government.

The ROB was supposed to be completed in 3 years beginning 2015. By September, 2018, the railways had built the main bridge. And it stayed that way, as the state government had not even begun its work even in 2023.

By this time, train-vehicle units at the level crossing had gone up to 17.71 lakh train vehicle units, according to the CAG report.

Though the railways completed its portion, the PWD couldn’t start its work as the state government failed to acquire land to build the approach road, the CAG report noted.

While pulling up the railways for commencing the works without ascertaining the status of land, the audit report also pointed out that the national transporter failed to recover the state government’s share of expenditure incurred for the construction made so far.

Though the railways says it had written several reminders to provide land and its share of money to complete the project, the state is yet to respond, the CAG report said.

The CAG also suggested that responsibility may be fixed against railway officials for undertaking the execution of the bridge without ensuring the matching progress by the state government.