Daudnagar-Nasriganj bridge opens to public

PATNA: A three-km long road bridge on Sone river between Daudnagar in Aurangabad district and Nasriganj in Rohtas district was on Saturday formally declared opened to public by the state’s road construction department after CM Nitish Kumar decided to cancel his scheduled programme to inaugurate the bridge following Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF jawans sacrificed their lives.
The four-lane bridge has been built at a cost of Rs 1,006.56 crore.
The bridge, which connects Patna-Aurangabad NH-98 at its Daudnagar end and the Nasriganj-Koelwar state highway (SH-81) at Nasriganj end, will reduce distance between different towns of Magadh and Shahabad regions of the state, road construction department’s (RCD) principal secretary Amrit Lal Meena told TOI.
He said since the state highways from Gaya to Dumraon via Daudnagar, Nasriganj and Bikramganj have already been notified as National Highway-120) by the Centre, the new road bridge will now be considered part of the NH-120.
Prior to November 2005 when Nitish Kumar first came to power in Bihar, there were only two bridges on Sone river in the state. One was built on the Grand Truck Road between Dehri-on-Sone and Barun and another road-cum-rail bridge at Koelwar.
“The state government built another road bridge on Sone between Arwal and Sahar in 2012 from its own resources. The Daudnagar-Nasriganj road bridge is fourth on the Sone in the state,” Meena said.
Meena said a new six-lane road bridge on the Sone was being built at Koelwar by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) as part of its Patna-Buxar four-lane highway. “Attempts are being made to complete the construction of new six-lane bridge in the current fiscal,” he said.
The RCD principal secretary also said that a new state highway (SH-81) was being built by the state government between Nasriganj and Koelwar on the western flank of Sone river. “The construction work on the Nasriganj-Sahar part of the SH has already been completed, while work is in progress on its Sahar-Koelwar part,” Meena said.