Administrative negligence on the part of the district administration and anomalous functioning of the UP State Bridge Corporation, which is tasked with bridge-building projects, played a role in the collapse of an under-construction flyover in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha seat of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Tuesday. The accident left 18 people dead and many more injured.
After the collapse, it came to light that security measures were grossly neglected in the construction of the flyover. The State Bridge Corporation had started constructing it in 2015, under the regime of former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and it was to have been completed in March 2019.
Many times the agency and district administration cautioned that because of movement of heavy traffic in the area, either traffic should be diverted or appropriate security measures taken; but these proposals were not heeded.
According to experts associated with such projects, wherever such type of constructions takes place, the entire area is sealed, or barricaded up to four to five feet on the left and right sides of the road and red flags or red lights placed to warn travellers, but no such arrangements were in place in Varanasi.
According to the project officer K.R. Sudan, UP State Bridge Corporation, the cause of the collapse is yet to be ascertained. Many times, departments concerned, like traffic and police, were asked to divert traffic but nothing happened, and the construction work was quite challenging as the area is narrow.
The incident puts a big question mark on the working of the UP State Bridge Corporation, the premier agency to construct bridges in the state.
Departmental sources say that earlier also bridges built by the corporation had developed defects. In 2010, a bridge constructed in the Bundelkhand region, which was about a kilometre long, had developed deep cracks soon after its inauguration.
In 2016, another bridge built by the corporation in Lucknow developed a deep cavity. An inquiry was later ordered into the incident but the matter was dumped.
According to UP Engineers’ Association general secretary, Surjit Singh, the Varanasi accident happened as corporation officials and district administration security agencies did not follow safety norms.