At a time when the administration is planning to revamp and transform the urban transport scenario here with introduction of more buses, a vital stretch of the city, the Bomikhal road overbridge, keeps missing its completion deadlines.

The bridge work seems nowhere near completion even though its latest deadline is approaching fast.

After missing four consecutive deadlines for several reasons, the bridge is set to miss the fifth one now which is by the end of this month. The public works department, which is executing the project, has fixed October as the latest deadline for the project in view of the upcoming Men’s Hockey World Cup in the city in November.

However, looking at the pace of work, it seems next to impossible that the bridge work would complete anywhere in the next one month.

“The workers have been in the job of constructing a final part on the Bomikhal side since past four months. I have no idea, why it is not getting completed,” said Charlie Rana, a shopkeeper by the side of the bridge.

The construction on the final part of the overbridge near Bomikhal brought a set of problems for the people as they were forced to ride through a bumpy alternative road.

Traffic congestion and irregular parking of various kinds of vehicles right on the road and under the bridge have doubled the trouble for the commuters here. “We have been forced to be in such a situation since past five years. There is always a limit of tolerance, and the state government is scaling the height,” said Arjun Mishra, a hotel owner on the Cuttack-Puri highway.

The bridge project had been sanctioned in 2008-09, along with two others at Pokhariput and VSS Nagar. The work on the bridges started simultaneously in 2012-13. In 2016, the bridge at VSS Nagar has seen the light of the day, while in August this year, the one at Pokhariput was thrown open to the public.

However, people are still waiting for this bridge to get the similar treatment.

“We are forced to wait at the level crossing for hours as this bridge is still to come into use. I had thought that this road overbridge would start operating before the two others, looking at the pace of work last year. But, I was wrong,” said Saheed Nagar resident Biswamitra Maharana.

A senior official of the works department said they were not delaying the project but taking precautionary measures to ensure proper completion of the bridge without any untoward incidents. “The work is going on near the site where a labour died in May this year. We don’t want to repeat any such event,” said the official.

Many a slip

• Project sanctioned in: 2008-09
  
• Work began in: 2012-13
  
• First deadline: March 2015
  
• Second deadline: Aug. 2016
  
• Third deadline: March 2017 (after extension towards Bomikhal was planned)
  
• Fourth deadline: Nov. 2017
  
• New deadline: Oct. 2018