Demand for a foot over-bridge in front of the Hanuman Vatika here is increasing day by day. Concerned citizens feel that the administration should look into the issue with immediate effect in order to avoid
any major tragedy. Hanuman Vatika is one of the major tourist as well as religious attraction for the city.
It is situated barely fifty meters away where the Ring Road and the busy Civil Township one way bypass road meet. The bypass road is used by heavy vehicles entering or exiting Rourkela, which include the heavily loaded trucks for Rourkela Steel Plant(RSP). During any such mentioned days commuting becomes extremely difficult as vehicles as both two and four wheelers, are parked on both sides of the oneway.“This makes the road very vulnerable and accident-prone,” said residents of the town. In fact, RSP was facing the same problem in front of the park.
Railings could not solve the problem. Finally, a few years back it erected a foot overbridge, all iron, there and today it is a favourite photography spot and visitors are using it.When this was brought to the notice of Collector Sundergarh Vineet Bhardwaj he said, “We are planning such bridges at different places in Rourkela and let us see whether that is feasible there or not.”
By feasibility he wanted to say whether the public would use it or not. He said, “Despite the overbridge if the public continue to jump over the railing instead of using it then the whole purpose fails.” However, when he was told that the height of the railings could be raised considerably for someone to climb with other deterrents the collector promised that he would order for a survey first then do the needful.