New Delhi, Nov 4 : The Signature bridge over the Yamuna inaugurated at an eventful function Sunday is double the height of Qutub Minar and has been delayed over 14 years.

The new landmark connect the Wazirabad across the river Yamuna to the inner city and will reduce the travel time between north and northeast Delhi.

Inaugurating the bridge with a 154 metre pylon, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia said that it will be a centre of attraction among local and international tourists who come to Delhi to visit historical monuments and buildings like India Gate and Qutub Minar.

The bridge will be a big relief to huge number of commuters who were earlier stuck up in long traffic jams over a narrow bridge in Wazirabad area.

The Western and Eastern approaches to bridge will connect the nearby areas like Timarpur, Nehru Vihar, Wazirabad, Aruna Nagar, Mukherjee Nagar on Ring Road to Bhajanpura on Mangal Pandey Marg.

The bridge will reduce the commuting time between northeast areas and the inner city from 45 minutes to just 10 minutes, saving the pollution and fuel, a government statement said.

The boomerang shaped pylon consists of two inclined columns, which are rigidly connected to the driv ing lanes and bend mid-way. The upper portion of the pylon an chors the backstay cables as well as the main-span cables, arranged in a harp like manner, the statement said.

The pylon from a distance looks like hands folded in a greeting posture. Its top is created by a 22-metre high steel-glass structure, which will provide a panoramic view of Delhi.

Visitors will be taken in four elevators with a total capacity of carrying 50 people to a 154-metre-high glass box on the top of the bridge to provide them a bird's-eye view of the city, the statement said.

Announced in 2004, the bridge missed several deadlines since 2011.

The proposal for the bridge, mooted in 2004, received approval of the Delhi Cabinet in 2007. It was initially expected to be completed at a modified estimate of Rs 1,131 crore for the Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi in October 2010.

In 2015, the cost of the project rose to Rs 1,594 crore.

Sisodia claimed that the actual work on the bridge started when AAP came to power in 2015 although the idea of it was conceived way back in 1997 by the then Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma.

He also said that an additional cost of around Rs 350 was raised by engineers as there was a huge underground rock and it needed to be stabilised for safety.

He also alleged that the Centre created "obstacles" so that the bridge was not completed in Arvind Kejriwal regime.

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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.

The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.

Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.

Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.

What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.

"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,

which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.

"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.

"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.

"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.

In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.

The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.

With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.

Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).