Goa CM Manohar Parrikar with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari at the inauguration event. (Source: Twitter/ANI) Goa CM Manohar Parrikar with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari at the inauguration event. (Source: Twitter/ANI)

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is ailing from cancer, turned up for the inauguration of the 5.1-km long cable-stayed bridge “Atal Setu” on the Mandovi river in Goa on Sunday, PTI reported. The Goa CM looked in high spirits, undeterred by the tubes inserted inside his nasal cavity, and asked the crowd “How’s the josh”, a reference from the recently released film Uri.

Parrikar was accompanied by Union minister Nitin Gadkari and Union AYUSH Minister Shripad Naik among other ministers from the state. The four-lane bridge at 2.5 lakh tonnes is equivalent to the weight of 570 Boeing aircraft. It would be third such bridge to connect the state capital with North Goa,

The bridge is made of 1 lakh cubic metres of high strength, high performance concrete enough to fill 40 Olympic size swimming pools, an official told PTI.

#WATCH: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar asks, “How’s the Josh”, at the inauguration function of the new Mandovi bridge “Atal Setu” in Panaji. pic.twitter.com/53KL0qEcaI — ANI (@ANI) January 27, 2019

Around 13,000 tonnes of corrosion resistant reinforcement steel, 32,000 square metres of structural steel plates and 1,800 kilometres of high tensile pre-stressing strands have gone into making the bridge.

The bridge has 88 high tensile strength cables in the state-of-art single place harp type cable stay system, and a real-time force monitoring mechanism.

The bridge is constructed by the GIDC (Goa Infrastructure Development Corporation) and engineering and construction major Larsen and Toubro.

The link will decongest Panaji to a great extent, as approximately 66,000 vehicles enter the capital city every day.

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