Twice in 2 years: Why this Bihar bridge keeps collapsing? | India News
According to sources, at least 30 slabs of several pillars, including pillar nos. 9, 10 and 11, measuring around 100ft each, collapsed and fell into the river.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has ordered a probe into the incident, just like he did last time when pillar nos. 4, 5 and 6 had collapsed. A loose cable stand was stated to be the reason behind the 2022 incident. A section of people had also blamed use of poor construction material.
Nitish had laid the foundation stone of the bridge on February 23, 2014. The bridge was projected to be completed by March 2020 at the cost of Rs 1,710 crore.
A Haryana-based company had got the contract of the bridge against which the BJP is now seeking action.
Sunday’s incident took place around 6 pm and no casualties have been reported so far, the district administration said. But some news reports suggest that several workers have gone missing.
Several reasons have been put forward for the repeated collapse of the bridge:
Poor construction material
Use of sub-par construction materials by builders looking to save costs is a major problem in many projects.
When the bridge collapsed last year, Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari had blamed low-quality construction material while refuting the explanation that wind or fog had caused the structure to fail.
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Watch: Under construction bridge collapses in Bihar’s Bhagalpur
“How could a bridge collapse due to wind and fog? There must be some other reasons. The construction material used in the bridge must be sub-standard. Hence, it had collapsed,” he had said. The Bihar road construction department is constructing the bridge.
“Prima facie it appears that the quality of construction material is substandard. During my past inspections also, I had found the quality of sand and other materials substandard,” JD(U) MLA from Sultanganj, Lalit Narayan Mandal, had said at the time.
This time too, questions have been raised over what type of material was being used for the construction of the bridge.
Union minister for power RK Singh said the incident is a clear example of high corruption in the state.
“It is a living example of corruption, and that such a big bridge worth Rs 1717 crore collapsed like cards in the Ganga. This type of incident has definite involvement of leaders, contractors and connivance of all. If the government had strictly investigated, then this would not have happened,” said Singh.
Design and structural flaws
While ordering a probe into the incident, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said the construction was incorrect due to which the bridge collapsed repeatedly.
“The bridge that collapsed on Sunday had collapsed last year also. I have instructed officials to take strict action. It is not being constructed correctly that’s why it is collapsing again and again. The department will look into it and action will be taken,” he said.
Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav said the state government was planning to demolish the bridge anyways as it had several design and structural flaws.
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Tejashwi Yadav says bridge over Ganga that collapsed was ‘faulty’
“It may be recalled that a portion of this bridge had collapsed on April 30 last year. We had, thereafter, approached IIT-Roorkee, which is esteemed for its expertise in construction matters, to conduct a study. It is yet to come up with a final report but experts who had studied the structure had informed us that there were serious defects,” Yadav said at a press conference.
He further said that “we had already pulled down many portions which have been flagged as particularly vulnerable. Sunday’s incident confirmed our worst apprehensions”.
Once the final report comes, which is expected shortly, the state government will contemplate action like lodging of FIR and blacklisting of the company which was awarded the contract, Yadav added.
Loose cable stand
A loose cable stand was one of the major reasons cited for the collapse of several slabs of the bridge last year during a thunderstorm.
Officials had alleged that the strong winds had upended a stand for the tension cable that was being temporarily used to keep the slabs joined during construction.
Opposition BJP attacks Nitish
Following the latest bridge collapse, Leader of Opposition in Bihar Vijay Kumar Sinha slammed CM Kumar’s governance and said, “There is a tradition of seeking commission (bribe) in this government. It is a consequence of Bihar CM’s mentality of political instability that there’s administrative anarchy and corruption. System is collapsing but they are talking about Opposition unity.”
He further stated that there should be an immediate enquiry into the incident. “There needs to be accountability in this incident. Those involved in corruption in the government have fixed their commissions. Where is your zero tolerance on the corruption?” he added.
The 3.16km-long bridge — connecting Sultanganj in Bhagalpur with Khagaria — would have been the sixth one across the Ganga to connect the northern part of Bihar (NH 31) with the southern part (NH 80) between Patna and Bhagalpur, and the second bridge across Ganga in Bhagalpur district.
(With inputs from agencies)
