The existing bridge is only 70 years old and it replaced a British-era bridge constructed across the railway line for the connectivity to the old walled city of Amritsar that has Darbar Sahib or the Golden Temple at its centre with the New City around the Civil Lines developed by the British on the other side.

The colonial-era old bridge was demolished and new one was constructed in its place in 1954, and it was named after an engineer Padam Chand Bhandari who was the former executive engineer of Amritsar Municipal Corporation.

Bridge extension project a boon

The extension project promised a much-needed respite by providing an additional route for vehicles, thereby distributing the traffic more evenly and reducing the burden on the old bridge, which is still in use.

The bridge extension beginning at Hall Gate enables vehicles to cross over to the railway station side. Meanwhile, the extension from the Jalandhar road side connects traffic to Hall Gate as well as the railway station.

However, there were unexplained barricades on the newly built parallel bridges. The traffic police removed these barriers only this year. Now commuters do not require to take a one-and-a-half-kilometre detour from the elevated road bridge to Hall Gate making the bridge more effective.

“The Bhandari Bridge extension has reduced the traffic jams to a large extent. Now, there are traffic jams at Bhandari Bridge mostly when it is used for the protest,” said Harminder Singh, a local resident who uses the bridge almost everyday.

The Bhandari Bridge is a popular protest venue as the heavy traffic on the bridge makes protesters grab eyeballs.

“Bhandari Bridge was not being used to its full capacity. We urged police to remove barricades and now the traffic is smoother,” said Kulwant Singh Anakhi of Amritsar Vikas Manch.

A railway line divides Amritsar city into two parts – the Old City and the New City and the British constructed a bridge to connect both parts. In 1954, the old bridge was demolished and a new 500-metre bridge was reconstructed. In 2022, two parallel bridges were extended – one of 500 metres in length and the other of 600 metres.

How Amritsar’s lifeline turns a bottleneck

With the passage of time and surge in population and vehicle numbers, Amritsar turned this lifeline into a bottleneck, with traffic jams becoming an everyday struggle for commuters.

The Improvement Trust initiated the Bhandari Bridge Extension Project on March 5, 2020. This ambitious project aimed to ease the traffic woes by constructing a new two bridges parallel to the old one and offering more entries and exits. The goal was to create a smoother flow of traffic and alleviate the congestion that had plagued the city for so long.

History

The colonial-era Bhandari bridge, however, is painted in dark shades of British dictatorship. Twenty five people were killed on this railway foot-bridge on April 10, 1919 as the British army opened fire at the crowd gathered there to protest the arrest of local leaders Dr Satpal and Saffudin Kitchlew, just three days before the notorious Jallainwala Bagh massacre.

As the news of 25 casualties on the old bridge on April 10, 1919 spread across the city, violence erupted in different parts of Amritsar and British officers, men and women were attacked at several places.

However, only Amritsar, but Lahore also witnessed reaction to firing on the Amritsar bridge on the same evening as a crowd marched from Lahore Gate to Anarkali bazaar raising slogans. Lahore police had opened fire at the gathering and the police later arrested nine people for alleged rioting.

Similar gathering was witnessed in Lahore on April 12, 1919 in which a crowd tore the pictures of the British King and Queen. Another gathering was organised at Babri Mosque Lahore and it was addressed by Hindu leaders. Different parts of Lahore saw small protests and crowds also turned violent at some places. Then came the fateful day of April 13, 1919- The Jallianwala Massacre.