Cuttack: After catering to the needs of lakhs of devotees, the famous Jhoola (suspension) bridge at Dhabaleswar will soon become history as the Cuttack district administration has planned for a permanent bridge.
"Keeping in view the safety of devotees, we have decided to construct a new bridge which will be much wider," said Collector, Sushant Mohapatra.
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As per administrative authorities the suspension bridge was planned keeping in view repeated accidents and deaths of devotees while crossing the river in country boats.However, the bridge has now become old and at the same time the flow of devotees has increased manifold in the past few years. The bridge was designed to take load of 600 people at a time, informed sources.
Official sources said a permanent concrete bridge will now be set up at an estimated cost of Rs 17 crore. The survey and soil testing has already been completed and the work for the second bridge project will start in the next two months.
"The new bridge will be 250 mts long and its width will be 5.1 mts and the work will be completed within 2 years," said Executive Engineer of the Rural Development Department, Dev Prasad Das.
However, such a decision has not gone down well with the devotees as suspension bridge has always been the most sought after route to reach the sacred shrine from Cuttack side.
Devotees have also questioned the move as the suspension bridge is only 11 years old after being commissioned in 2006.