Only one bidder has come forward to audit the 81 bridges in the South Mumbai. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had blacklisted the previous auditor which suggested minor repairing of Himalaya Bridge. The bridge collapsed on March 14, killing seven people and leaving more than 31 injured.
After the Himalaya Bridge collapse, the civic body ordered previous auditors of the Eastern and Western suburbs to re-audit the bridges and started a procedure to appoint a new auditor for the 81 bridges of the South City.
After a month, Bridge Department has opened the tender of only one respondent, Structwel Designers and Consultants Pvt. Ltd. The consultant has already audited bridges in the eastern suburbs. Generally, BMC re-invite tenders if it gets a response from only one or two bidders. "This is an emergency. The bridges should be re-audited before the monsoon. So there are more chances that the administration will table the proposal with one bidder in next standing committee meeting, after approval from municipal commissioner," said an officer from the BMC. Meanwhile, re-auditing of bridges in suburbs adds six bridges, three from western and three from eastern suburbs in the dilapidated list. Already there were eight bridges in Western suburbs and five bridges in Eastern suburbs declared dilapidated.
The work of inspection of bridges and repairing has halted as 42 out of 57 engineers from the Bridges Department went on a mass leave of 15 days on Thursday. Engineers started agitation after cops arrested S O Kori, former chief engineer for negligence in Himalaya Bridge auditing.