ID28m to maintain Mosul’s oldest bridge

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: The Ninewa Roads & Bridges Department will Tuesday embark on works to maintain Mosul city’s oldest iron bridge at a cost of 28 million Iraqi dinars, a department official source said on Monday. “The works, to take a couple of weeks, are being financed by the Umm al-Rabiain Isnad (Support) Committee and will be carried out by a local contracting company under the department engineers’ supervision,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The 260-meter-long bridge, built in the 1920s by a British company, will be closed to traffic during the maintenance period. The adjacent one-way al-Hurriya bridge will be opened for two directions for that time,” the source noted. The Umm al-Rabiain Isnad Committee had been formed upon Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s directives to support the service aspect of the security operations that was launched in May 2008. A sum of 120 billion Iraqi dinars ($100 million) was appropriated for setting up urgent reconstruction projects in the province. Mosul, the capital city of Ninewa province, lies 405 km north of Baghdad. AmR (P)/SR 1