Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta on Friday suspended two senior engineers and ordered a detailed inquiry against three others in Thursday’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus bridge collapse case. He has also ordered that a first information report (FIR) be filed against the structural auditor and a blacklisting process be initiated against a contractor. Besides, he has ordered a re-audit of all city bridges. Meanwhile, demolition of the collapsed bridge's remains is under way.
The State government had ordered the municipal commissioner to conduct an inquiry into the matter on Thursday, following which Mr. Mehta had directed the chief engineer (vigilance) to do a preliminary inquiry and submit a report immediately. The report was submitted on Friday, based on which Mr. Mehta passed the orders.
Originally built between 1984 and 1986, this foot overbridge was part of the 39 allotted to Prof D.D. Desai’s Associated Engineering Consultants and Analysts Pvt. Ltd. for structural audit in 2016. The final audit report was submitted to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in August 2018.
“The structural auditor has not raised any alarm for anticipated failure of structural members and not recommended any specific need for repairs… the structural audit is not carried out correctly and major lapses are observed in conducting (it)...” the chief engineer (vigilance) has concluded.
The Hindu had reported in its Friday edition that the auditor had categorised this bridge as ‘good’ and recommended only minor repairs.
Besides, between 2012 and 2014, the BMC had allotted a bi-annual contract to M/s RPS infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. The contractor had carried out structural repairs to the CSMT bridge. Since Thursday’s incident has occurred within six years of those repairs, the chief engineer (vigilance) has said “…it seems the work was not up to the mark.”
Based on this report’s recommendations, Mr. Mehta passed an order suspending executive engineer (bridges) A.R. Patil, who was supervising the structural audit in 2017-18 and assistant engineer S.F. Kakulte who was supervising repair work in 2013-14. They will face a detailed inquiry.
Besides, three other engineers including former chief engineer (bridges) S.O. Kori, will also face departmental inquiry as they were supervising the structural audit of all city bridges.
“There is prima facie reason to believe the structural audit has been carried out in an irresponsible and negligent manner… the structural report appears to have completely overlooked the critical elements of the bridge and their condition,” Mr. Mehta said in his order, issued on Friday.
He has ordered a number of actions against Prof D.D. Desai’s Associated Engineering Consultants and Analysts Pvt Ltd. These include an FIR to be filed against them, de-empanelment, blacklisting, all ongoing works to be withdrawn, all payments to be stopped and money paid be recovered. Besides, all bridges already audited by the company will be re-audited through a different consultant.
Besides, every other bridge that was audited since 2016 will be re-audited by the same firms and they will be asked to confirm their findings, in the light of Thursday’s incident.
The BMC will also create the post of a Chief Bridge Inspector whose job will be to get regular audits done.
Taking a strong view of the major repair work done in 2013, Mr. Mehta has said that municipal engineers failed to identify and attend to issues, neglected repairs and that repairs were carried out without any study of the bridge condition (in 2013). The contractor will therefore be issued a show cause notice for blacklisting.
The vigilance department will also submit a detailed inquiry on the cause of the bridge’s collapse, status of its maintenance and structural audit in a month.
After the Mahad bridge collapse and the Andheri bridge collapse, the BMC had appointed consultants for a detailed structural audit of 296 city bridges and FOBs. Of these, 110 were concluded to be in good condition, 107 require minor repairs, 61 require major repairs and 18 are to be demolished.
Of the 39 bridges audited by Prof. D.D. Desai’s Associated Engineering Consultants and Analysts Pvt. Ltd., 12 were placed under the ‘good’ category and repairs were recommended.
