Howrah Bridge

Since ancient times, the Howrah Bridge has served as the symbol of Kolkata and the face of the City of Joy. The bridge, which is the sixth-longest cantilevered bridge in the globe with suspended spans, is one of Bengal’s earliest engineering and architectural marvels.

The Hooghly River suspension of the Howrah Bridge has been supported by no pillars for the past 76 years, and it has seen many historical events, including World War II. It connects Kolkata and Howrah and is a symbol of Bengal’s past and present. Anyone entering Kolkata must cross this bridge in order to access other parts of the state because it serves as the city’s entrance.

The bridge, which is 705 metres long and eight lanes wide together, welcomes 200,000 vehicles and 150,000 pedestrians each day, making it the busiest cantilever bridge in the entire globe. In 1965, it was formally renamed Rabindra Setu in honour of Nobel Prize–winning poet Rabindra Nath Tagore. But Howrah Bridge continues to be a popular name for it.

February 2018 marked the 75th anniversary of the bridge. It was embellished by the Kolkata Port Trust administration with multicoloured flags.

Howrah Bridge’s architecture

Howrah Bridge’s architecture is remarkable in and of itself because it was constructed entirely without the use of nuts or bolts. The entire building has rivets. The bridge’s official classification was a “Suspension Type Balanced Cantilever” since it was one of a kind at the time it was built and unique in the world. When it was first put into service, it was the third-longest cantilever bridge.

The bridge deck is hung from thirty-nine pairs of supports that are suspended from the main trusses. Only 3,000 tonnes of the 20,000 tonnes of steel needed to build the bridge came from England, while the rest of the High-tension steel weighing 23,000 tonnes,wasdeliveredby Tata Steel under the name “TISCROM”.

Monolith caissons were used to build the main tower. The entire project was completed underground. By 1938, the foundation’s construction was finished, and the cantilevered arms were put up by the middle of the following summer. The suspended span’s two halves each weigh 2000 tonnes and measure 282 feet in length.

The total project cost was 2 crore 50 lakhs.

The Howrah Bridge’s past

The historical story of Howrah Bridge begins in 1862, when Calcutta, the capital of British India at the time, began to become busier every day. The Hooghly River divided the two major districts of Howrah and Calcutta, making good connectivity between them necessary. As a consequence of the Howrah Bridge Law of 1871 and the establishment of the Kolkata Port Authority in 1870, the first floating bridge that linked the two sites was completed in 1874. The bridge’s components were transported from England and put together in India. This bridge had walkways on both sides that were 2.1 metres wide and 465.7 metres long.

Since it was at a lower elevation, the bridge needed to be occasionally loosened to allow steamers and other watercraft to pass. Although this bridge temporarily served its purpose, it was not strong enough to resist inclement weather or a load of heavy vehicle traffic. As a result, the Port Commissioners saw the need for a reliable substitute and offered their proposal to build a stronger bridge.

New Howrah Bridge

The 1906 committee concluded that a floating bridge should be constructed in order to accommodate the heavy traffic demands that the new bridge had to handle. A price was determined for whoever submitted the best design and construction plan after tenders were opened. The First World War put a stop to this entire scheme.

The “Mukherjee Committee” was established in 1921 to continue work on the New Howrah Bridge after the war, under the guidance of an engineering team led by Sir R. N. Mukherjee. He advised that a single-span arch bridge be constructed over the Hooghly during their discussion of the report with Sir Basil Mott.

Following the Mukherjee Committee’s submission of its conclusions to the recently constituted New Howrah Bridge Commission, the entire contract for the work was granted to the British company Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Corporation Ltd. On the basis of the 1930 recommendations made by the Goode committee, the new bridge’s final design was created by Mr Walton, the firm’s main draughtsman. A local business, the steel work will be carried out by “Braithwaite Burn & Jessop Construction Company Limited” as a subcontractor.The bridge’s construction was finished in 1942, and on February 3rd, 1943, it was made accessible to vehicles. A single tram was the first vehicle to cross the new Howrah Bridge.