Kemps Corner flyover: BMC insists bridge is safe but agrees to audit

— By | May 08, 2018 07:41 am

Mumbai : Independent India’s first flyover bridge, the one in Kemps Corner at Pedder Road, will soon undergo a structural audit at the hands of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), after a popular social media site was flooded with photos of a large fissure on the flyover on Sunday morning BMC has declared that the bridge is safe and the ‘fissure’ is a fault in the design of the bridge caused by its alignment dating to the period in which it was built in 1965. However, it will conduct the audit nonetheless, the civic body said. Photo by BL SONI

Mumbai: The Kemps Corner flyover at Pedder Road will soon undergo a BMC structural audit, following public outcry over reports that two slabs on the bridge are not in perfect alignment.

Citizens have flooded social media with snap of a fairly large cleavage between the girders, which is frighteningly wide. The BMC has declared that the bridge is safe and that the fissure is on account of a fault in the design dating back to 1965 when the flyover was constructed. However, it will nonetheless conduct the audit to allay misgivings, the civic body said.

All of Sunday, a photo of the huge crack on the Kemp’s Corner flyover was doing the rounds on sites. Several citizens even wrote letters to the civic body.

S O Kori, the chief engineer of the bridges department, BMC, has said: “The flyover is absolutely safe. The fissure is not a crack. It is a fault in design, dating back to the time the bridge was constructed, and is due to poor alignment. My department recently concluded a structural audit of the bridge and found it in good condition, needing only minor repairs. Yet, due to the number of complaints, we are finding a way out to fix the alignment. That is why the audit.”