Image courtesy: The HinduThe iconic and engineeringly challenging cable-stay bridge built by Larsen & Toubro over the Durgam Cheruvu lake was inaugurated recently and dedicated to the people of Hyderabad by the Honorable Minister of Municipal Administration & Urban Development Industries, IT&C, Government of Telangana, KT Rama Rao in the august presence of G Kishan Reddy, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Dr Bonthu Rammohan, Hon’ble Mayor of Hyderabad, other dignitaries, L&T’s senior management and project team.  Constructed under Telangana’s Strategic Road Development Programme, the bridge will ease traffic flow towards HITEC City, reducing commute time from Jubilee Hills to Madhapur from 30 to a mere 10 minutes and the distance from Mind Space to Jubilee Hills by 2 km. “Our association with this young state of Telangana has been rich and we are proud to have delivered yet another pearl to the City of Pearls,” said SN Subrahmanyan, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Larsen & Toubro. “Infrastructure development should ultimately improve the life of citizens and this bridge will certainly improve connectivity within the city of Hyderabad manifold. We are also grateful to the Government of Telangana for having reposed faith in us once again to deliver another world-class infrastructure and are happy to have delivered to their complete satisfaction.” “A unique aspect of this bridge is that it has the world’s longest precast segmental span of 233.85 m in concrete for a cable-stay bridge,” elaborated SV Desai, Whole Time Director & Senior Executive Vice President (Civil Infrastructure), Larsen & Toubro. “We have constructed it despite the extremely challenging conditions and terrains that we encountered using a total of 428 MT of the high-tensile strand, 26,600 cum of concrete, 4,800 MT of steel and 287 MT of stay-cables. We are happy that we have delivered the project in time even during these unprecedented times of the pandemic.” The Cable-Stayed bridge portion is 435 m long, including the approaches at both ends, 25.8 m wide with a total of 52 stay cables. The approach viaduct and solid ramps are 309.8 m long with 1.8 m wide footpaths on both the sides. While the cables were procured from Germany, everything else is sourced from India making it a very example of the ‘Make in India’ movement.