Sundargarh: A proposed Ring Road project on Ib river in Sundargarh district has taken a step forward with the District Collector Nikhil Pavan Kalyan submitting an alignment plan to the Irrigation Department for its approval.
Hopes of people have brightened for the construction of the long-awaited project. Collector said the land acquisition process for the project will begin immediately after getting approval from the irrigation department.
Apart from land acquisition, a blue print of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) will also be prepared. If everything goes as per plan, tender for the project will be floated within a few months, Collector said.
MLA Kusum Tete and former MLA Jogesh Kumar Sing expressed their gratefulness to the Collector for his initiative step.
Tete had long been demanding construction of a ring road on the Ib River both at the water resource department and irrigation department.
On the other hand MLA Jogesh Singh claimed that construction of the ring road will help tackle the traffic problem and will also be helpful to tackle flood situation in the Ib river bank areas.
Construction of the ring road will start from outskirts of the Bandhapali bridge till Bhojpur i.e. on the left side of the Ib River.
The bridge will help tackle the traffic problems in the cities like Rourkela, Hemgiri, Tangaraplai and Lefrigada as it will connect these cities with a single road.
The District Collector has approved Rs84.50 crore for the construction of the ring road from the district mineral department fund.
Sources said, in 2012 former MLA Jogesh Kumar had recommended the construction of a rind road to then Collector Ruparoshan Sahoo. He had also sent a letter to the irrigation department for the same.
As per instruction of the then Collector, a survey was conducted by the water resource department to estimate the cost required for the construction of the road. The survey report said around Rs 53crore will be spent for the purpose.
Following the survey report, Rs 2 crore was sanctioned by the state government for the first phase of the construction work. As the sanctioned fund was not enough to construct the rind road in the first phase, the fund was transformed to Public Health Department.
Notably the road will surround respective cities from all sides and act like a wall. This would prevent floodwaters from entering the city with traffic control. The road will play both the role of a dam and a road for the city people.
