CSMT FOB collapse: BMC engineers didn’t study audit report carefully, says bridge dept head

Civic body to consider consulting IIT-B, VJTI for future audit report reviews and repair proposals

Engineers responsible for the upkeep of the Himalaya bridge near Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) “did not carefully study” the audit report submitted by the Professor DD Desai engineering firm.

The foot overbridge leading to CSMT collapsed in Mumbai on March 14. (HT Photo)

Sanjay Darade, chief engineer (bridges), admitted to the oversight by the engineers concerned, at Thursday’s standing committee meeting.

Although the audit report stated that the bridge was in “good” condition, it had also recommended a few repairs were not carried out.

“It can be concluded that the engineers concerned did not study the report carefully,” said Darade. “In the future, we will also consider consulting institutes like Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) and Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) for the structural audit of bridges,” he added.

The CSMT FOB collapsed on March 14 killing six people and injured 31.

“By visual inspection of the collapsed bridge, it was evident that the structure collapsed due to welding failure which means that the joints between the treads and risers gave in. The overall structure of the bridge was not weak,” said a senior official from the bridges department, on condition of anonymity.

At the meeting, the Opposition brought in an amendment to remove the name of the auditor (Professor DD Desai) from the ₹14-crore proposal to repair the 16 structures.

“Tomorrow if anything goes wrong with the repairs, then the blame will be on the standing committee,” said Ravi Raja leader of the Opposition in BMC. The proposal was passed after the amendment.