A section of the under-construction four-lane bridge on the Sultanganj-Aguwani Ganga river route in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district collapsed into the Ganga river for the third time on Saturday.
The portion between pillars 9 and 10, spanning from Sultanganj to Agwani Ghat in Bhagalpur, submerged into the river, raising concerns over the structural integrity of the project.
Khagaria's District Magistrate Amit Kumar Pandey told news agency PTI, “I must tell one thing, the entire structure of the under-construction bridge, which is faulty, is supposed to be dismantled by the contractor. The construction work has already stopped there. The contractor is dismantling the structure at the direction of the Patna High Court".
No casualty was reported in the incident, he said.
SP Singla construction company was tasked with building the Aguwani-Sultanganj bridge on the river Ganga. Already, Rs 1717 crore has been sunk into constructing the bridge, which has collapsed thrice now.
The Mahasetu, a major infrastructure project being constructed by SP Singla Company, is intended to connect the Khagaria and Bhagalpur districts. However, the repeated collapses have sparked scrutiny of the construction process and the safety measures in place.
Construction work on the bridge was temporarily halted due to the ongoing flood situation in the Ganga, which had increased the challenges of building over the river.
Work on the Aguwani-Sultanganj Ganga bridge began in 2014 and the deadline to complete it has failed eight times. The bridge also suffered some damage back in April 2022, due to a storm.
The repeated failures of this bridge section have raised alarms and prompted calls for an investigation to determine the cause of the collapses and to ensure the safety of future construction efforts.
Earlier in December 2022, a portion of the bridge built across Burhi Gandak river in Bihar's Begusarai, had collapsed. The bridge had reportedly developed cracks and pillars 2 and 3 of the bridge had taken a fall.
A month before that, in November, a labourer died and another was injured when an under-construction bridge in CM Nitish Kumar's Nalanda district collapsed. Under-construction bridges also collapsed in Kishanganj and Saharsa districts before inauguration.
Source: India Today