Mysuru: The shifting of the ancient monument “Tipu’s Armoury” to pave way for the completion of the Mysuru-Bengaluru track doubling work is almost completed. On day two, the experts from America along with Indians and Railway authorities have almost shifted Tipu Sultan’s historical armoury to nearly 100ft from its previous location to the newly marked place. The total stretch from previous place to new place is nearly 120 mtr. The track will be commissioned by the end of April.
On Tuesday, Sanjiv Agarwal, Divisional Railway Manager, Bengaluru Division, South Western Railway too visited the place to see and even learn the shifting process of the monument which is being done for the first time in Asia. Sanjiv Agarwal, along with his officials spent more than two hours at the site and K Ravichandran, Deputy Chief Engineer, South Western Railway, Mysuru who is also looking after the ongoing work explained the shifting process to Agarwal. Agarwal and also other officials including Sridhar Murthy, Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Bengaluru Division, South Western Railway were visibly spellbound by the ongoing shifting project. The process has attracted many people from not only across Srirangapatana but also from other places where five engineers including technicians from USA are working to make it by Friday.
Jamin Buckingham, the engineer based in Pennsylvania of USA, one among five experts from USA said, “The physical shifting of the monument started on Monday and everything is going on according to our plan. We are confident of completing the shifting to the new place by Friday. We have almost shifted the monument to nearly 100 mtr from its earlier place. We have experience of shifting the churches and buildings in USA.” He also mentioned that two third of the shifting on first direction is almost completed and would start using role beams to move it in the other direction. “The technique used here is almost the same as we have adopted in USA, the only difference is, here we work with different people. Really, the work is challenging. We have four technical people and the rest all are the labourers from India. This apart, from USA we brought jack machines and all the rollers” added Buckingham, Project Manager from USA.
After inspecting the ongoing shifting work, Sanjiv Agarwal, DRM, Bengaluru division, SWR said, “The work is undertaken by the construction wing. This is the first time that such work is being undertaken in India. I am very curious to learn and see what they do. The construction of the compound wall in the new location of Tipu’s armory would take another one month. However, the alignment is clear for the completion of rest of the doubling work and the track in this particular stretch will be commissioned by the end of April.”
The challenges before the department of Railways and the company from the USA that has taken the project are to land the nearly 1000 tonne armoury smoothly on the expected place where the construction of a foundation is needed. The fixing of the armoury in the expected spot would take about one month.
Hardworking US experts:
Mohammed, born and brought up in Srirangapatna who is one among the workers involved in shifting of Tipu’s Armoury said, “The experts from America are really hard workers. There is a lot to learn from them. Even though they are engineers they never bother to assist labourers or those ranked below them which is not the same with the people here. Really feels great to work along with them.”
