Sajnagad: Crores of rupees are being spent towards development of infrastructure in various parts of the state, but people of Ayodhya panchayat under Nilagiri block in Balasore have been facing commuting problems in the absence of bridge and roads. Locals were peeved over sluggish pace of a bridge construction in their area.
Reports said, for the last five years, Balipal bridge project has been still under construction due to apathetic attitude of the administration and negligence of a contractor.
Locals alleged that as long as the work gets completed, their commuting problem will not be over.
Their only means of communication is a rickety bamboo bridge.
In view of the perennial commuting problems, the state government planned a bridge across Sone river in Ayodhya panchayat. Its construction work was undertaken July 8, 2013 at an estimated cost of Rs 9. 23 crore. The work was supposed to end July 7, 2015.
Over three years have passed since its deadline, but the bridge project seems to be nowhere near ending.
Thousands of people living in the area have long been waiting for its completion. Now a bamboo bridge is facilitating the communication in the area.
The bridge will throw open communication facility from Nilagiri to Mayurbhanj via Kansa, Tinidesa and Narasinghpur. The bridge will cut short a distance of 10 km between Nilagiri and Mayurbhanj, apart from facilitating movement of ambulance and fire tenders easily in case of emergency.
Locals were upset over slow pace of construction. They had taken up the issue with the administration, the contractor concerned and the executive engineer of the rural development department, but it yielded no results.
They warned of agitation in coming days.
Executive engineer of the RD, Nandalal Ghadei refused to say anything and asked this correspondent to talk to the SDO.
SDO Gokulananda Parida said that the bridge work has been halted for rainy season while the contractor has been warned for delay in work.
