Andheri bridge collapse: Western Railway ignored its own report on Gokhale Bridge corrosion?

On Tuesday morning, when Mumbaikars woke with series of mishaps and were shaken up by yet another shocker as the news of the collapse of a foot overbridge at Andheri spread. But even as Mumbaikars are getting their lives back on tracks, the usual blame game between the BMC and the Western Railway has started. But in this blame game, a report has surfaced which suggests that an inspection by Western Railway in April had detected corrosion on Gokhale Bridge but the report was never sent to BMC.

A senior railway official told Mumbai Mirror, “A report was submitted to the divisional engineering department saying there was a need for maintenance work to be carried out in a planned manner. The engineering department had drafted a proposal based on the inspection report.”

According to the report, the proposal was sent to the railway’s accounts department for cost estimation, where it remained “under process”. A WR official told the leading daily, “As per the protocol, the cost estimation should have been forwarded to the BMC to release the funds for the bridge’s repairs since it was a BMC property. The BMC would have conducted its own inspection before releasing the funds. In this case, the cost estimation was never sent to the BMC.”

The Western Railway, on Tuesday, had said that WR and BMC in last November had conducted a joint inspection in November last year, and they didn’t find any structural flaw in the bridge. Western Railway’s PRO told the leading daily, “I cannot comment at the moment as I will have to check the file that was sent to the finance department after the inspection, and the remarks by the finance department.”