Bihar: Demand Grows for Judicial Probe Into Collapse of Rs 1,700 Cr Under Construction Bridge

Patna: Amid politics heating up over the sudden collapse of a part of an under construction bridge in Bihar's Bhagalpur district, the demand for a judicial enquiry or a high level independent enquiry is growing. A ruling JD-U (Janata Dal -United) MLA, Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP0 leaders have demanded a judicial probe into the “smell of corruption” and an advocate of Patna High Court has filed a PIL seeking a judicial probe.

Facing flak over the incident, the state government has suspended an engineer and initiated the process to blacklist the construction firm, SP Singla Construction Pvt Ltd, that was constructing the 3.11-km-long four-lane bridge by issuing a notice to it. All this came after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced that action would be taken against the guilty.

Unhappy over the bridge’s collapse, Kumar said that stern action would be taken against those responsible for it after the probe. He also expressed concern over the delay to complete his dream project after he laid its foundation stone in 2014. "I had suspected some flaws in the bridge when a portion collapsed last year", he added.

On Tuesday, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav told the media here that the quality of the under construction bridge was suspect and he was first to have raised the issue as the Leader of Opposition when the bridge collapsed the first time. "A probe is undergoing and the guilty will not be spared", he said.

Yadav, who is also the road construction minister, on Monday said he, too, had suspected design trouble in the bridge.

According to reports in local Hindi dailies, JD-U MLA Sanjeev Kumar has directly accused a senior IAS officer of additional chief secretary rank, considered close to the Chief Minister, for the collapse. Sanjeev Kumar alleged that the IAS officer was involved in corruption that had resulted in bridge’s collapse."I had met the IAS officer with evidence of corruption and negligence and had informed him about the poor quality of materials used in the construction that had led to crack in a pillar. But the IAS officer ignored me and was not ready to accept the evidence", he is quoted as saying.

The JD-U leader demanded a probe by a sitting High Court judge into the matter."This is a game of corruption and a probe by the High Court judge will expose it", he added.

BJP state president Samrat Choudhary also directly blamed the state government for the bridge’s collapse and demanded a probe by a sitting HC judge or a probe by CBI.

Two days after the Aguwani Ghat-Sultanganj bridge on river Ganga collapsed, an advocate Manibhusan Pratap Sengar filed a PIL in Patna High Court on Tuesday seeking an independent enquiry.

The Rs 1,710 crore four-lane bridge, being built over the Ganga river between Sultanganj in Bhagalpur and Aguwani Ghat in Khagaria connecting NH31 and NH80, collapsed for the second time on June 4, resulting in huge waste of public money, he said, also calling for the recovery of this huge loss and waste of public exchequer/ public money from the guilty persons.

The petitioner, in his PIL, highlighted that this was the second collapse on the same under construction bridge. In April 2022, the super structure of pillar nos, 4,5 and 6 had collapsed and a loose cable stand was stated to be the
reason, but some sections of people had blamed the poor construction materials for that mishap.

"Appropriate directions be issued for an independent enquiry as to why in spite of penalising the company for the delay ,since the work was slated to be completed by March 2019, the Bihar government kept on giving time to complete work.(from March 2019 to March 2020 and then to 2022)," he said in his petition.

Sengar requested the court to issue directions to blacklist the company SP Singla Constructions Pvt. Ltd. since the bridge collapsed first in April 2022 and the same company was constructing it again.