Growing pressure of completing work even with acute manpower crunch, absence of experts to supervise construction and the responsibility to manage traffic etc.
All these taken together posed serious of problems for UP State Bridge Corporation officials while oveerseeing construction of the Varanasi flyover that collapsed on Tuesday leaving 18 dead and several injured.
Ironically, political pressure silenced the voice of the Corporation brass from calling spade a spade. As a result, they chose to silently ignore safety measures and somehow meet the dead line handed out.
Sources in the Corporation confirmed that about a decade back, hardly one or two Railway Over Bridges (ROB) were constructed in the state and the Corporation attained expertise in constructing bridges over rivers.
Also those bridges were constructed in isolated places where no traffic management was requiored and hence they did not need to master the skill of managing traffic during construction work. In the present scenario, of the 183 ongoing construction projects undertaken by the Corporation, 83 are ROBs and 4 are Elevated corridors and only 96 bridges were over rivers.
Sources said that as these ROBs and elevated corridors were constructed in city areas to clear traffic congestion, so the work has to be carried out along with traffic management for which Corporation officials were not trained or hadfirst hand experience.
“The Corporation had no separate wings on traffic management. Officials and engineers were not subjected to any workshop to help understand the guidelines while taking work in congested areas,” said a Bridge Corporation official preferring anonymity. “What is more, due to pressure of traffic and local public, the local administration and the Government pressure us on completing the project at the earliest. This further burdens the Corporation officials and engineers and aggravate the situation,” he said.