A newly built major bridge across River Souparnika during the four-lane work of NH 66 developed a huge crack in one of its girder joints on Saturday in Kundapura taluk of Udupi district.
Immediately hearing about the development, Kundapura police restricted vehicular movement on the new bridge (carriageway from Karwar to Udupi) and diverted the vehicles on the old bridge at Arate-Hosadu, said Police Inspector Gopikrishna. Eyewitnesses said broken steel rods were visible through the gap.
The nearly 1-km-long bridge was part of four laning of NH 66 between Kundapura and Goa border. IRB West Coast Tollway Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of IRB Infrastructure that undertook the project in 2014 on BOOT basis, is yet to complete the four-lane work.
Residents along the highway stretch had been alleging substandard work in the execution of the project from the very beginning.
NHAI Project Director, Mangaluru, Shishu Mohan, refused to receive telephone calls.
Udupi Additional Deputy Commissioner Sadashiva Prabhu told The Hindu that engineers from IRB and officials from the NHAI were inspecting the affected bridge.
Quoting NHAI officials, he said the crack was on the surface carriageway and an inspection conducted by the authority five months ago had found the bridge was in order.
However, the spokesperson of the IRB West Coast Tollway Ltd denied the allegation of sub-standard work carried out by the Company.
“At the outset, we strongly deny the allegation of sub-standard work carried out by the Company in construction of the bridge. The construction of this bridge, along with all other bridges on this Project, has been in strict compliance with the IRC Codes mandated for construction of all bridges in India. All the bridges on the stretch, including this bridge, have been functioning smoothly since their completion and commissioning. On inspection of the bridge by the technical teams, it has been observed that the developed crack is at the joint location and the bridge has no issues at all with respect to the structural safety. However, the matter has been referred to the Design Consultant and the Independent Engineer. We wish to re-iterate, which also needs also to be appreciated that the IRB Group has proven track record of more than two decades in building India’s best highways infrastructure with the world class quality and safety standards across all terrains of India, ” said the spokesperson.