‘Health audit of Howrah Bridge to be conducted after about 20 years’

KOLKATA: The Syamaprasad Mookherjee Port (SMP), Kolkata also known as the Kolkata Port is going to soon conduct a thorough health audit of the Howrah Bridge and subsequently carry out overall maintenance work while also planning to soon float a global tender for repairing the Austrian-built Bascule Bridge at Garden Reach.

Addressing a press conference, the chairman of the port, Rathendra Raman said that the Kolkata Port is soon going to take up thorough maintenance work on the Howrah Bridge for which it has appointed a consultant. He said that although the port carries out minor repair works from time to time, it will now do an overall health audit and subsequent maintenance work. The chairman informed that the bridge became operational in 1942 and the last check-up was done by RITES Ltd in 2003.

The port has appointed the National Technology Centre for Ports, Waterways & Coasts (NTCPWC) as the consultant. The agency is an institution in IIT Chennai that was developed by the Ministry of Port, Shipping & Waterways for providing guidance and technical support to all major ports.

Highlighting the need for such a health audit, a senior engineer associated with the Kolkata Port said that in steel structures there are concepts known as “fatigue” and “corrosion”.

The health audit is to check whether any structural element of the bridge has developed these issues over the years. It was pointed out that the health audit is all the more required since the bridge bears a substantial amount of load if the traffic from Howrah Station is considered in terms of connectivity.

Although it was pointed out that the movement of heavy vehicles has been shifted to the Vidyasagar Setu.

The port authorities said that presently they are finalising the scope and detailed terms of reference for the comprehensive audit of vital components of the bridge. A tender will be floated once the health audit report is compiled.

The work is likely to start post-monsoon. In the context of the Bascule Bridge, the port chairman said that a consultant was appointed for a study and has submitted a report to the port.

It revealed that installing a completely new bridge will cost about Rs 300 crore but repair work will cost somewhere around Rs 71 crore.