Setu Bharatam Project
The Setu Bharatam project was launched on 4 March 2016 by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi.
Under this scheme, the Central Government has been working on a plan to convert the crossings on all the National Highways of the Country into over and underground bridges.
The task of Constructing all these bridges is to be executed by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
A total of 102 Billion Rupees was sanctioned by the Central Government to complete the project. Road accidents in India occur mostly on Highways, mainly due to the lack of crossing on the Highways. In about 75% of cases, an accident results in death.
The primary reason is that people ignore even after seeing and no one wants to help the victim, reason being safe from proven guilty.
To deal with these problems, the central government started this project.
The Government of India aims to reduce road accidents by upto 50% by 2020, to ensure safe and smooth traffic and by the replacing all level crossings on the National Highways under over and underground bridges by 2020.
The scheme also aims to construct a Rail Over-Bridge or Underpass for safe travel on the National Highways and to make all National Highways cross-free to prevent frequent accidents and loss of life at railway crossings.
Unmanned railway crossings are a major cause of rail accidents in India, especially in rural areas.
The GoI has set a target to eliminate all such crossings before the end of this year, so that such accidents can be avoided.
Under this project, 208 Railway Over Bridges (ROBs) and Railway Under Bridges (RUBs) will be constructed at a cost of 208 Billion Rupees.
An Indian Bridge Management System or IBMS was also established by the ministry of Road Transport and Highways at the Indian Academy of Highway Engineer in Noida.
The main objective of this project is to survey all the bridges on National Highways through mobile inspection units. About 11 firms have been set up for this purpose.
The GoI has also undertaken the reconstruction of about 1500 bridges which are about 50-60 years old.
Hopefully, all these developments will play an important role in the upliftment of the developing India.
