The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) has indirectly laid the blame at the door of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for the Road over Bridge (ROB) collapse near Andheri railway station, in which one person was killed and four others were injured.
In his provisional findings, Commissioner of Railway Safety Sushil Chandra attributed the mishap to “heavy/deep corrosion and pitting of cantilever steel brackets supporting the pathway resulting in thinning down of section and failure of the pathway of the ROB”.
Though he classified the mishap as a result of the “failure of railway staff and others”, the CRS stated in his preliminary inquiry report: “The failure of the ROB pathway was contributed by the additional load of various cables, sand, paver blocks etc provided by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai without prior permission from the Western Railway. These additional loads were not considered at the time of original design”.
On July 3, the south pathway of ROB near southern end of the Andheri railway station crashed onto the running tracks of the Churchgate-Andxheri BG multiple line involving 25 KV section of the Western Railway’s Mumbai Central division, leaving five people injured and disrupting suburban and long-distance train services for the entire day.
After the collapse of bridge’s pathway onto the railway tracks, the Western Railway and BMC had indulged in a blame game over the responsibility for the mishap.
Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar had held the Western Railway responsible for the mishap. “The responsibility of maintaining the Gokhale bridge connection Andheri (east) and Andheri (west) lies with the Railway. I hold the Railways squarely responsible for the mishap”.
Minutes after the mishap, the Western Railway had laid the blame at the BMC’s door when it issued the first Press release on the mishap at 9.56 am.
Meanwhile, ten teams of the experts of Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay and officials from the BMC, West Railway and Central Railway are inspecting 445 bridges across Mumbai. As part of the inspection, the IIT-B and other officials are ascertaining the stability of the bridges which pass over the railway tracks in Mumbai.
On his part, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had said that the inspection of the 445 bridges was being ordered to improve commuter safety.