Howrah Bridge is a cantilever bridge that spans over the Hooghly River in West Bengal.
The construction of bridge was started on 1936 and ended in 1942. It was opened for the public transport on 3 Feb 1943.
The bridge does not have nuts and bolts and was built by riveting the whole structure.
At the time of its construction, it was the 3rd longest cantilever bridge. Now, it’s the sixth longest bridge of its type in the world.
26,500 tons of steel was consumed in the construction of Howrah Bridge, out of which 23,000 tons of high-tensile alloy steel, known as Tiscrom, was supplied by Tata Steel.
The initial construction process of the bridge was stalled due to the World War I.
The acutal name of the bridge is Rabindra Setu, named after the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. However, it is still popularly known as Howrah Bridge.
It carries a daily traffic of approximately 100,000 vehicles and possibly more than 150,000 pedestrians, making it one of the busiest cantilever bridges in the world.
The first vehicle to cross the bridge was a solitary tram.
Bird droppings and human spitting cause corrosion to the bridge. An annual expense of Rs. 500,000 is incurred to keep it clean.
Kolkata Port Trust is entrusted with maintenance of this bridge.
Rs. 6.5 million was spent to paint the entire bridge, which required a total of 26,500 litres of paint.
