Digha–Sonpur Bridge

About

The Digha–Sonpur bridge or J. P. Setu is a rail-cum-road steel truss bridge across river Ganga, connecting Digha Ghat in Patna and Pahleja Ghat in Sonpur. It is named after Indian independence activist Jayaprakash Narayan. It provides easy roadway and railway link between north and south Bihar. It is 4,556m in length and the second longest rail-cum-road bridge in India, after Bogibeel Bridge in Assam. Rail service was inaugurated on this route on 3 February 2016. This is second railway bridge in Bihar after Rajendra Setu that connects North Bihar to South Bihar. Indian Railways has constructed two railway stations on either sides of the bridge – Patliputra Junction (PPTA) and Bharpura Pahleja Ghat Junction (PHLG). Rajendra Setu was the only bridge that carried railway tracks across the Ganges in the state of Bihar till 3 February 2016. It was opened in 1959. On 22 December 1996 Former Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda laid the foundation stone for the construction of the railway bridge over Ganga at Sonepur. Ram Vilas Paswan was the railway minister at that time, but the physical work on the bridge began in 2003 when Nitish Kumar was the railway minister. The Digha–Sonpur Ganga bridge was initially sanctioned as a rail bridge; the project was converted to a rail-cum-road bridge in 2006. Total cost of the project was put at ₹13,890 million, out of which ₹8,350 million was for the rail part, and ₹5,540 million was for the road part. It was expected to be completed in five years. The construction work on the bridge was completed in August 2015, and a trial run of a diesel locomotive was undertaken on the bridge in the same month. Digha–Sonpur Bridge project was executed by Ircon International and the bridge was completed at ₹1,570 crore (US$160 million). The electrification work on the Patna-Sonepur-Hajipur Section was completed by July 2016. The doubling of railway tracks on the bridge started in May 2018, and is being done at an estimated cost of Rs 156.09 crore and will be completed by December 2019. Construction of the bridge being completed, the inaugural commercial run on the rail bridge took place on 3 February

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.