The Delhi government has released Rs 100 crores for the Signature Bridge project, which was hit by a ‘fund crunch’, slowing down its last phase of construction, tourism minister Rajendra Pal Gautam said, on July 17, 2017. He said the finance department had sanctioned the amount, after examining the contractor’s demand for an additional Rs 250 crores. The total cost of the project is around Rs 1,500 crores.
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“The fresh infusion of funds will ensure that work, which had considerably slowed down, resumes. Around 92 per cent of the project is completed. We might release more, depending on the justification of the demand,” he said. The government has set December 2017 as the deadline for the project, located over the Yamuna in Wazirabad.
A bow-shaped steel pylon of the bridge, which was conceptualised by the Sheila Dikshit government in 2004, will be twice as high as the Qutub Minar. It is being executed by the Delhi Tourism Department. Being built on the lines of the London Bridge, it was meant to be showcased during the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
The initial project cost was pegged at around Rs 1,131 crores, which was later revised to Rs 1,575 crores. In January, Lt Governor Anil Baijal had directed the authorities concerned, to send to him a monthly progress report of the project.
