A portion of the road beneath Mangaluru-Mumbai/Bengaluru Railway line on NH75 at Padil that has been under construction for three years by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) caved in on Tuesday, raising questions over the construction quality.
NHAI was in the process of asphalting the carriageway (from B.C. Road towards the City) when a portion of it caved in late Tuesday evening. Officials suspect presence of an old culvert beneath the affected stretch while workers were digging the stretch to know the actual cause.
Work on the Railway under Bridge (RuB) on the B.C. Road-Mangaluru carriageway commenced in December 2017. The old RuB was closed and traffic was diverted to the newly constructed one on Mangaluru-B.C. Road carriageway.
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The RuB on this stretch has been prone to flooding during heavy rains for absence of proper drainage facility.
Initially, it was the Southern Railway that delayed erecting the superstructure of the second RuB that involved construction of concrete boxes in-situ and removal of some trees and electric installations in the location. Even after SR completed the process and allowed NHAI to asphalt the carriageway and build shoulder drains in December 2019, the Authority did not take up the construction till about March.
The RuBs are part of four-laning NH75 between B.C. Road and Nanthoor and NH66 between Nanthoor and Surathkal under Port Connectivity Project. While NHAI has completed most part of the work and is collecting hefty toll at B.C. Road and Surathkal, some missing links, including the present RuB, still remain incomplete.
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