Travelling to Kutch from Ahmedabad and Rajkot is going to be more time consuming for the next three months, thanks to the closure of a railway over bridge on the route for repairs.
Usually it takes a little over five hours by road to reach Gandhidham from the state capital and about seven hours to reach Kutch. Now it may take an hour or two more depending on the time of journey.
NHAI has closed one of the two railway overbridges (ROB) near Maliya, the entry point to Kutch, and diverted the entire traffic to the parallel ROB.
On Tuesday, thousands of unsuspecting commuters including travellers and cargo vehicles, were stranded for hours near Maliya and a traffic jam of 15-20 km was witnessed.
Covering the distance of 18 km from Maliya to Surajbari took about 2-3 hours.
Maliya is the common junction where vehicles going towards Kutch from Rajkot and Ahmedabad converge. There are two ROBs near Maliya, one for going towards Kutch and another for vehicles coming towards Ahmedabad or Rajkot.
NHAI sources said the railways have asked for the closure of this bridge for maintenance and to create a diversion for vehicles. NHAI project director in Gandhidham, Jitendra Chaudhary said, “The railways want to increase the height of the bridge for electrification work. Vehicular movement is slow but smooth as teams from NHAI and police are managing the traffic. One side of the bridge is closed for traffic and the traffic of both sides are using a single line of the bridge that resulted in conjunction.”
Sources said that the railways had raised the height of the other side of the bridge six months ago, and at that time too vehicles had to use the single side of the ROB.
Naran Gadhvi, police sub-inspector, Maliya Miyana police station said, “The work is expected to continue till February. We noticed that car drivers are trying to use the wrong side which is resulting in snarls. We appeal to people not to break the line and have patience.”
According to sources, around 20,000 cargo and container trucks use this road to reach two important ports of Kandla and Mundra.
Around 4,000 to 5,000 trucks are stranded in traffic jams.
Nimish Phadke, managing director of the Federation of Kutch Industries Association said it’s time that a viable alternative highway is built for smooth movement of cargo to Mundra and Kandla. Several trade bodies have been suggesting building a sea-link highway from Kandla to Navlakhi.”
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