Butibori flyover is finally going to reopen for vehicular traffic from Saturday onwards, five months after it was closed in aftermath of damage to the bridge’s piers. M/s TNT Infra said it is going to submit the report of load testing to local officials and the bridge would open from morning onwards. As per information, the police officials ensured that the flyover is reopened soon so as to avoid traffic-jam during the visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to city on Saturday. National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) officials have gone through the load testing report submitted by the contractor and gave its nod for reopening the flyover.

 

The reopening of the Butibori flyover would put to end the traffic snarls that had become a big problem for locals and more particularly provide relief to the traders whose businesses suffered since the closure. Since Butibori square sees massive movement of heavy vehicles, the flyover was a boon for the surface traffic. Long distance travellers especially used to stop by at the square shops for snacks and tea. But ever since the damage to piers, the traffic below was thrown out of gear.

 

Traffic jams become a daily feature till Nagpur Rural Police devised way, diverting the traffic to avoid criss-cross movement at the square. This move on part of Police Department brought a sense of discipline to the traffic movement. But still the big detour during peak times was frustrating for the big vehicles, as it increased consumption of fuel, which in turn meant increased spending on cargo movement. Post detection of cracks on December 24, 2024, the Butibori flyover was closed for traffic. Though the piers on only one end, on the deck slab of Butibori-Chandrapur side, were damaged, still as a precaution, entire flyover was out of bounds for traffic.

 

Since the bridge become structurally weak, the authorities put up barricades on either end to ensure no vehicle passes through the fly-over. Meanwhile, NHAI roped in VNIT experts and the team from Civil Engineering Department to study reasons that led to cracking of piers and recommend measures to rehabilitate the fly-over. The VNIT team visited the spot and took samples and studied the same and submitted its findings to NHAI. Since the flyover was covered under defect liability, the contractor was asked to carry out repair works. Till then, scaffolding was put up to hold the viaduct at Butibori to support the flyover. As reported earlier, special repairs were carried out wherein focus was on adding additional reinforced bars to strengthen the piers. This also ensured that weight bearing capacity of flyover is now increased so in future there would be no repeat of past incident like cracking of piers.