New Delhi: A bridge over the Mindhola River in Gujarat's Vyara collapsed on Wednesday. The bridge connected the villages of Maipur to Degama in the Tapi district of Gujarat.
About 15 villages have been affected by the collapse of the bridge, reported ANI.
Executive Engineer Nirav Rathod said, "The construction work of the bridge started in 2021, which cost Rs 2 crore. An investigation will be conducted by experts to determine the cause of the bridge collapse."
In a similar incident, a section of an under-construction bridge, known as Aguwani-Sultanganj bridge, over the Ganga river collapsed in Bhagalpur district on June 4. This bridge was being built to connect Bhagalpur and Khagaria. A day after the collapse, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had said that strict action would be taken against those found guilty.
"The bridge that collapsed had also collapsed last year. It is not being constructed properly that is the reason it collapsed twice since April 2022", the CM had told reporters.
Immediately after the incident, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister, Tejashwi Yadav, who also holds the portfolio of the Road Construction department, had said that the state government was anyway planning to demolish the under-construction bridge because of structural flaws.
"A portion of this bridge had collapsed on April 30 last year. We had, thereafter, approached IIT-Roorkee, which is known for its expertise in construction matters, to conduct a study. It is yet to come up with a final report but experts who had studied the structure had informed us that there were serious defects," Yadav had said.
The Haryana-based company, which was awarded the contract, has already been served with a show cause notice by the Managing Director of Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam and asked to reply within 15 days following the incident. The department also suspended the executive engineer concerned for his failure to keep an eye on the quality of the work.