Imphal, August 05: With almost all the building material reaching the bridge sites on NH-53, strengthening exercise of the bridges will be taken up on a war footing along the Jiribam to Barak stretch from tomorrow.

The number of weak bridges including Hamilton and bailey types identified for strengthening has been put at 13, a senior officer of the BRTF informed The Sangai Express.

The material required for strengthening the bridges are being procured from the BRTF units at Aizawl and Tezpur and the State Public Works Department, said the officer and added, �Since we have received material, works will start on a war footing from tomorrow morning�.

The officer further said, �Since man power is not a problem, we should be able to complete the work of strengthening the bridges within four days time�.

To a question, the officer replied that the bridges would be left open to traffic even during the strengthening exercise and added the trucks which conform to the 10 tons norms would be allowed to pass the bridges.

Once the strengthening works are completed, trucks weighing 15 tonnes will be allowed to cross NH-53, he added.

The reinforcing work was taken up after the Chief Engineer of BRTF, KYK Mahindra Kar conducted an extensive survey of the bridges along the Jiribam to Barak stretch on August 3.Following request from the BRTF, the State PWD today despatched four truck loads of bridge reinforcement material to the work sites.

A highly placed source in the PWD informed The Sangai Express that a team of PWD engineers will go to the work sites and share their views and technical know how with the BRTF engineers.

The team comprising of three Superintending Engineers and one Executive Engineer will leave Imphal tomorrow morning on a two day trip.

The four engineers include Ch Tiken Singh, SSW, PK Mukherjee SE II, Kh Tomba SE, National Highway Circle and Y Joykumar Executive Engineer, Bishnupur, further said the source.