Wazirabad Signature Bridge, the Delhi government’s showpiece project, is once again under review. The issue now: the government has to decide whether to allot work for second part of the project to Gammon India, the contractor for the Metro stretch that recently saw a fatal accident at Zamrudpur in South Delhi.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Wednesday met senior officers, including Finance Minister A K Walia, to discuss the project. “It was a preliminary meeting on the Signature Bridge; the cost of the bridge was taken into consideration. We will take a final decision only in a Cabinet meeting,” Principal Secretary to the CM P K Tripathi said.

The cost of the Signature Bridge has been escalating ever since it was conceived in 2004: the budget for the six-lane project now stands at Rs 980 crore. The project has been broken into two parts, the approach roads leading to the bridge, and the bridge itself.

Gammon was allotted the Rs 350-crore approach road project six months ago. Work on this project is going on and is slated for a 2011 completion.

The Cabinet now has to take a decision on the main bridge, for which the government has received tenders: at Rs 630 crore, Gammon India has the lowest bid. But officials said following the disaster this July at Delhi Metro’s Central Secretariat to Badarpur line at Zamrudpur, the government is now in two minds whether to allot the project to the company.

“The Cabinet can decide whether they want to scrap the Signature Bridge altogether and build a simple one instead,” a senior government official said. “If it decides to build the Signature Bridge, the next question is whether to allot the project to Gammon India.”

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