BackBihar bridge collapse: Company faces show cause notice, executive engineer suspended
The bridge, which was intended to connect Bhagalpur and Khagaria districts over the river Ganges, collapsed partially on Sunday.
PremiumThe Bihar government has taken a serious stance on the recent bridge collapse, issuing a show cause notice to the construction company involved, according to a senior official.
As reported by PTI, Pratyay Amrit, the Additional Chief Secretary for the road construction department, also confirmed the suspension of the executive engineer in question.
"The Haryana-based company, which was awarded the contract, has been served with a show cause notice by the Managing Director of Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam and asked to reply within 15 days", Amrit told PTI.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav told reported that the bridge will be constructed in a time-bound manner.
He added that the company has been asked to explain why it should not be blacklisted by the government and further action was taken against it.
"The department has also suspended the executive engineer concerned for his failure to keep an eye on the quality of the work", added the Additional Chief Secretary.
The bridge, which was intended to connect Bhagalpur and Khagaria districts over the river Ganges, collapsed partially on Sunday.
The construction of the bridge, with a budget exceeding ₹1,700 crore, was scheduled to be finished by 2019. The foundation stone for the bridge was laid in February 2014 by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
According to media reports, the under-construction bridge collapse in Bihar's Bhagalpur area has raised huge concerns. The Aguwani-Sultanganj Ganga bridge was being built at the cost of ₹1,760 crore. The visuals of the bridge collapse were widely shared on social media platforms with people questioning the quality of construction.
According to a report published by The Indian Express, the infrastructure firm constructing the Bihar bridge which has recently collapsed is also the contractor of the Signature bridge project in Dwarka along with two other infra-building projects in Gujarat.
Earlier, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav suggested that certain sections of the bridge had been intentionally demolished before, and the recent collapse confirmed concerns about its structural integrity.
This incident occurred one year after another section of the bridge had collapsed during a thunderstorm.
Expressing dissatisfaction, the chief minister criticized the substandard workmanship and significant delay in finishing the project on Monday.
The BJP, which previously held power in the state until approximately a year ago, has attributed the issues to "corruption" and called for the resignation of the chief minister.
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