Govt ignored alerts about Mumbai-Goa highway bridge

MUMBAI: Two days after the collapse of a bridge over the river Savithri at Mahad on the Mumbai-Goa highway, there is growing evidence that it was the result of official apathy and callousness cutting across party lines. This government, and the one before it, ignored repeated warnings that the 100-year-old bridge built by the British could crumble at any moment.

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In July last year, Mahad’s MLA, Bharat Gogawale of the Shiv Sena, raised a question in the state assembly saying it could collapse anytime and result in a “major tragedy”.

In its response in January this year, all the State government did was to uproot some vegetation growing out of the bridge’s joints and declare it structurally sound.

Gogawale had said the vegetation had grown and eaten into the foundations of the bridge. In words that now sound prophetic, he had said that the bridge might collapse during the monsoon and result in a major tragedy.

But public works department (PWD) minister Chandrakant Patil had dismissed Gogawale’s fears. “The British-era bridge’s joints had some outgrowth of vegetation, which has been pulled out manually. Every monsoon, an audit is done and such vegetation is pulled out. However, the bridge is structurally sound and traffic flow is smooth,” Patil said, in a written reply.

Patil wasn’t alone. In 2013, a Shiv Sena leader, Shashikant Paryekar, wrote to the then chief minister, Prithviraj Chavan, warning him of the delicate condition of many bridges on the Mumbai-Goa Highway.

“British-era bridges on this highway have not been replaced nor have boundary walls been built next to them. If this is rectified, we will not have to face any sort of tragedy,” Paryekar wrote.

However, the letter was not even acknowledged by Chavan’s office in 2013. “I had hoped, with the letter, that his office would take note of this issue. But, it did not elicit a single response till date,” Paryekar told Hindustan Times.

Similarly, a former Congress MLA from Mahad, Manikrao Jagtap, has been issuing similar warnings to the state government for at least seven years now. “I have been telling them that the bridge is way past its age and have been pushing them to shut it down. I have written several letters but they did nothing,” he said.

In the legislative assembly, the issue resulted in a slanging match between the ruling BJP and the opposition. Responding to the opposition’s allegations of negligence, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said that even the Congress-NCP government had ignored the issue, raising the 2013 letter.