Delhi Tourism Minister says Signature Bridge must be completed by Dec.31

New Delhi [India], June 1 (ANI): Delhi Tourism Minister Rajinder Pal Gautam on Thursday said he has written a letter to the Chief Secretary of Delhi in which he has insisted that the construction of the Signature Bridge must be completed by December 31, 2017. Gautam said in his letter that the repeated missing of the deadline for completion of the project has so far escalated costs to a monumental Rs.1267 crore, and added that he has sought an explanation from the contractors involved in the project. It may be recalled that when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power in February, 2015, it announced that the project will be completed by June, 2016. The time for completion was further extended to July, 2017. The state-of-the-art Signature Bridge, supposed to connect north-east Delhi with outer Delhi, is all set to miss the July deadline as well. The initial cost was pegged at Rs.887 crore, and was escalated from Rs.1,131 crore in 2010 to Rs. 1,594 crore in 2015. Now, it has further escalated by Rs 456 crore. The project is only 60 per cent complete and once completed, the government can recover the amount through commercial activities planned along the river side under the bridge. The Signature Bridge will connect north-east Delhi to outer Delhi. It will also be a gateway to the Tronica City in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, which is being developed on the lines of Indirapuram and Kaushambi of Ghaziabad. (ANI)