Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 29
The Northern Railway is constructing one of the largest underpasses of India under the track near Sarita Vihar. The underpass is being constructed by advance technique of box pushing.

Underpass at Sarita Vihar within the Railways boundary is being executed by the Northern Railway on behalf of the Delhi Development Auhtority (DDA).

This underpass connects the Okhla industrial area with Kalindi Kunj on Noida side. After construction of this underpass, the length of road route from Sarita Vihar to Okhla will reduce to 1 km from existing 9 km.

This will result in huge saving of fuel and will facilitate road users like cars, cyclist and heavy vehicles and reduction in travelling time.

The underpass crosses the Delhi-Mumbai Rail route, which is one of the busiest rail line in India. On this rail section, about 300 trains and locomotives run per day. The underpass in the railway area involves construction of long RCC boxes in three barrels. Two barrels are four lanes, each for vehicular traffic, and one barrel for cycle and pedestrians.

In box pushing technique, entire length of reinforced concrete box is divided into segments. The segments are precast over a horizontal RCC thrust bed, adjacent to railway embankment.

The boxes are then pushed into the embankment one after another with the help of hydraulic force created by jacks.

The force of the jacks is transmitted to precast segment and thus it moves forward.