‘Corroded’ bridge would have been repaired only next year

After the G K Gokhale bridge collapsed early Tuesday. Santosh Parab

THE GK GOKHALE bridge that collapsed between Andheri and Vile Parle stations on the Western Railway (WR) was classified under the ‘priority four’ list of bridges to be constructed, maintained or repaired on the WR. This means the railways would have started repairs on this bridge only next year, despite being identified as ‘corroded’ last year.

After about 40 metre of the pathway on the southern side of the bridge collapsed on the tracks and affected suburban railway traffic, senior railway officials claim that heavy construction work including laying paverblocks on the pathway and infusing at least 50 cable wires from inside increased the load of the bridge. Though, the railways had identified the bridge to be ‘corroded’, in an inspection audit in November last year, it was not identified as a “dilapidated structure.”

After 23 people died in a stampede on the Parel-Elphinstone Road foot overbridge on the WR in September 2017, the railways had prioritised bridge repair works according to level of importance or the ‘damaged state’ it is in. “In the inspection audit, we had identified the bridge as corroded. However, the corrosion was not major enough to be looked into immediately. While we are currently undertaking work on a set of eight bridges classified under priority three, this particular bridge comes under ‘priority four’ which means we could have floated tenders for constructing repair of this bridge only in the next five months. For the list of priority three bridges, the corporation had deposited only Rs 4 crore from a demanded sum of Rs 13 crores,” a senior railway official said.

The Gokhale bridge, constructed in 1966 by the BMC, stretches over eight railway tracks on the Western Railway which include two slow and fast lines for the Western line each, two lines for trains starting from or going to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and a Suburban Track Avoidance (STA) line that caters to trains between Andheri and Goregaon. While the WR had conducted minor repairs of the pathway on the northern side of the bridge four months back, it was the southern pathway that collapsed on Tuesday.

“We had to cut down a huge cluster of wires originating from the path that collapsed on Tuesday. Earlier pictures of the bridge reflect that much of the surface construction work was carried out on the bridge. For each of the works, no Non-Objection Certificate (NOC) was taken from railways,” a senior railway official said.

Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said he has advised Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai to conduct a six-month audit of 450 bridges on both Central Railway and Western Railway to identify what work requires to be done. However, senior railway officials said that a joint audit will be conducted by the railways and BMC to identify corroded bridges.

Earlier, some commuters had complained about the deteriorating condition of the Gokhale bridge. In a Tweet on September 5, 2017, Daman and Diu resident Vishal Tandel said, “The ROB beneath is in dilapidated condition at Andheri platform number 8.”