The Majerhat bridge will be thrown open to traffic within the first few days of December, senior officials in Nabanna said.

Though a formal announcement is awaited, several state government officials and police said the inauguration was likely to take place at 4pm on December 3.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee will inaugurate the bridge.

The railways and the PWD, the implementing agency for the Rs 200-crore project, have submitted a joint “safety certificate” on the bridge’s structure to the state government. A copy of the certificate was also sent to the commissioner of railway safety in keeping with the protocol.

In the next few days, final touches will be given to the paint and the layer of mastic asphalt on the deck along with the lights. A final round of inspection will be carried out by senior engineers and police will be asked to draw up a traffic plan for the bridge and the four service roads around it.

“The remaining work would be wrapped up within the next few days so that once the bridge is inaugurated, there are no loose ends,” a senior PWD official said.

The state government’s decision to inaugurate the Majerhat bridge comes within eight days of the engineers from the PWD completing the crucial “load test” of the bridge and the Taiwanese design consultant clearing the “deflection” that were recorded because of the stress.

The chief minister had on Thursday said the bridge, a portion of which had collapsed on September 4, 2018, would have been completed nine months earlier had the railways not delayed clearances.

The railways submitted its clearance the next day and within the next 24-hours the government took the decision on opening the bridge.