9 MONTHS ON, AUDIT OF 23 OVERBRIDGES YET TO FINISH

MUMBAI: Nine months after Union railway minister Piyush Goyal announced a structural audit of 445 structures on the city’s suburban network, to be carried out by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, the Central Railway (CR) is yet to complete audit of 23 of the 299 structures in its purview. The audit was announced following the Andheri bridge collapse in July 2018. The Western Railway (WR) has completed the audit of all its 146 structures.

Since September 2017, a total of 31 people have lost their lives in three separate bridge-related mishaps in the city. According to a press release by CR on Friday, IIT-B has inspected 81 of the 89 rail overbridges (ROB), 178 of the 191 foot overbridges (FOB) and 17 of the other 19 structures in the r a i l ways’ p ur v i e w. “The remaining 23 structures will be inspected soon. Follow-up action suggested in case of a few structures is being taken in a phased manner,” reads the statement. CR, however, did not give any deadline about when the repair of all the structures will be completed. According to a senior CR official, of the 178 Fobs audited, immediate attention was necessary f or 32 structures. For instance, Mumbra FOB was demolished and the repair work on Sewri FOB is on. The zonal railway came under fire from political parties and citizens following the CSMT bridge collapse on Thursday after certain political leaders claimed that CR owns the bridge. CR has clarified that they had not constructed the Himalaya bridge.