Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday said the foot overbridge collapse near Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) must be considered an “eye opener” and directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to come up with a new policy for the audit, repair, and upkeep of rail and foot overbridges in the city.
A bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice N M Jamdar asked the BMC to consider handing over the periodic structural audits of some such bridges, particularly those that received the most footfalls, to an expert agency such as IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) or VJTI (Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute). It also said the civic body must streamline its tender process to introduce stringent criteria ensuring only such contractors
who had requisite expertise and were capable of doing good work were chosen for structural audits and repairs of bridges. “When you (BMC) are spending crores of rupees, then why don’t you want quality,” the bench asked.The bench was referring to Rs 2.5 crore spent by the BMC on structural audits of bridges in the year 2017-18.
Following the foot overbridge collapse on March 14, in which six persons were killed, the BMC conducted an inquiry, fixing responsibility on the staff who had carried out repair works on the bridge in the year 2013-14, and those who had conducted its structural audit in the year 2017-18.
The bench said the BMC must stop relying merely on the private structural auditors and must change its policy on getting structural audits, repairs etc., done for bridges across the city. The bench said the BMC must also appoint its own staff, who are experts in the field, as supervisory authorities to conduct routine checks over and above the structural audits conducted by the private parties.
“Hold your chief engineer of bridges accountable. Ask him to conduct routine checks over and above the structural audits. Let this incident be an eye opener for you,” the bench said. The court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by Shakeel Ahmed.
The plea, filed through advocates Sujay Kantawala and Mohd Zain, had sought, among other things, that the BMC cancel all structural audit contracts given to the firm D D Desai, which had audited the foot overbridge that collapsed. As per the BMC, in the 2017-18 audit, the contractor had certified it to be safe and said that the bridge merely needed some minor repairs.
Advocate Zain also urged the court to direct the BMC, Central and Western Railways to carry out a fresh audit of all the rail and foot overbridges in the city. The BMC counsel Anil Sakhre, however, told the court that the civic body was already re-auditing all bridges in the city.