Home News Govt engages utility companies to relocate distribution lines in path of ECD...
In a bid to resume infrastructural works on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) Railway Embankment, the Public Works Ministry is actively engaging utility and telecommunication companies to relocate distribution lines within the vicinity of the road project.
Among them are Guyana Power and Light (GPL); One Communications (formerly GTT) and Digicel Guyana.
The scope of works for the US$192 million project includes the expansion of the Railway Embankment Road to four lanes from Sheriff Street to Orange Nassau, the expansion of the existing East Coast Demerara Road from Orange Nassau to Mahaica to four lanes and the rehabilitation of the two-lane East Coast Demerara Road from Belfield to Orange Nassau. Additionally, 22 culverts and 48 bridges, including another bridge across the Hope Canal at the Railway Embankment section, are being constructed.
In a brief telephone interview with Guyana Times on Wednesday, subject Minister Juan Edghill explained that sub-contractors would be hired by the utility companies to fast-track the relocation exercise.
Thereafter, the main contractor spearheading the expansion project will start constructing bridges earmarked for the various communities.
“For us to be able to build the bridges and the structures, we have to drive piles. The driving of those piles, the machines can trip those lines and can give outage to large sections of the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System. So, what we would have had to do was to work at every structure to remove the transmission lines in corridors off of the work area, so that we would be able to work. For example, the Oak Bridge and all the other bridges coming along was a major hold-up, because we were looking at creating a utility corridor elsewhere and replacing the transmission lines, but that’s going to be a big exercise and an expensive exercise. So, we have sat with the contractor and the consultants, and we have been able to come up with an approach that is moving,” Edghill told this publication.
In addition, vendors plying their trade along the project route will soon be relocated to a new tarmac within the vicinity of the Plaisance Market, ECD.
The facility, which was constructed following consultations with residents in the area, can house some 50 vendors from Plaisance and surrounding areas.
Edghill explained that the tarmac would ensure that vendors who currently ply their trade along the roadside and in the pathway of vehicular traffic, have a safe and hazard-free environment to conduct business.
“As a matter of fact, by next Tuesday, we’re going to have a meeting with the people in the Plaisance area. We have issues there with people who will be removed because of the expansion of the road. The tarmac is completed and we are working with the NDC [Neighbourhood Democratic Council] now to get all of those persons who have been documented, replaced into the new area that has been prepared for them, so, so the project is moving along,” he added.
The ECD Railway Embankment project falls under the Framework Concessional Loan Agreement from the Exim Bank of China aimed at easing traffic congestion and catering for expected industrialisation at Enmore.
