Pune's Chandani Chowk bridge demolished to help with city's traffic woes

Pune (Maharashtra) [India], October 2 (ANI): An old bridge on National Highway 4 (Pune Banglore highway) was demolished on Sunday night through a controlled impulsion, the demolition of bridge (famously known as Chandani Chowk Bridge) was part of ring road project at Chandani Chowk to ease out traffic issues on NH4.
The process to demolish the bridge started from September 13. It was planned to carry out the blast within one week time after starting pre-demolition work but due to the weather conditions, date for demolition was shifted to October 2.
According to the District Collector of Pune, the Edifice Engineering private company that was tasked to carry out the demolition work successfully demolished it through blasting.
Dr Rajesh Deshmukh told ANI," Edifice engineer has confirmed that blast was carried out successfully on Chandani Chowk Bridge and removal of debris in the highway started on time".
The officials of the company also called it successful demolition and thing went well as planned.
The Partner of Edifice Engineering, Utkarsh Mehta said, "demolition work of the bridge was divided in two parts one was to demolish the bridge through the controlled blast and to carry out the impulsion, 600 kgs of the explosive used after drilling 1300 holes in different part of the bridge and its pillars.".
"We were tasked to demolish the bridge and clear the road within the time bracket of 8 hours so immediately after the blast several earth moving machines like JCBs forknails vibrator were put in place to clear debris from the highway, and we have successfully carried out the demolition work".
As per officials, Pune district administration have made out a detailed plan to demolish the bridge for which several arrangements like alternative vehicular movement of the highway and stopping of unnecessary vehicle movement etc.
This demolition was carried out by the National Highway Authority of India and the Pune district administration with the help of a team from the Noida-based Edifice Engineering consultancy company that recently demolished the Supertech Twin Towers.
During his last month in Pune for an event, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari had directed the NHAI authorities to complete the work on the ongoing multi-bridge (ring road) project at Chandani Chowk junction by June 2023 to ease out the traffic congestion on this key junction on Pune Bangalore Highway. (ANI)