In a press release issued on Sunday, the SWR said that during a visit of General Manager Ajay Kumar Singh on September 29, 2020, the residents (nearly 250 families) of Gandhi Nagar in Londa had complained of a lack of a connecting road to the main road and they had to detour 3 km to go to nearby level crossing gate to cross the railway track and Londa yard.

The Hubballi Railway Division took up this engineering challenge of constructing limited height subway (a road under bridge underneath 5 running lines) and completed it in 90 days, which is a record of sorts for Indian Railways, said SWR chief public relations officer E Vijaya.

The new bridge helps the local residents who were earlier forced to take circuitous route of about 3 kms due to closure of level crossing gate to cross over to other side of the tracks. The residents of the nearby locality thanked Mr. Ajay Kumar Singh and expressed happiness as their nearly 70 years old requirement is fulfilling.

Work from Preparation of GAD/TAD, approvals, estimate preparation, processing for sanctions, and casting of 25 RCC boxes and inserting these boxes, traffic block stretching over 36 hours, construction of wing- walls, approach roads, closure of LC by district authorities, were completed in 90 days,” said the release and added that normally construction of any such subway takes minimum 18-24 months. The entire project was completed at an estimated cost of Rs 6.12 crore.