Have you ensured Gondal bridges’ repair is not done as it was in case of Morbi, HC asks govt

The bench had earlier slammed the state for its “complete apathy” in heeding the recommendations of an expert committee on the repair of the bridges, the link between two parts of the Gondal town.

The Gondal municipality had earlier told the court that it did not have funds to repair the bridges, and it was even struggling to pay staff salaries. The submissions came forth in a public interest litigation filed at the High Court after the Morbi bridge collapse, raising alarm on the dilapidated condition of the two bridges in Gondal.

On Wednesday, the state submitted before the court that a plan had been formulated to construct two brand new bridges at the cost of Rs 17 crore while either repairing or demolishing the century-old bridges.

The division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee, however, noted that the state’s action towards the two dilapidated bridges was taken only after directions from the High Court. The bench remarked that prior to the court’s attention, the state authorities were “sleeping”.

Chief Justice Agarwal — while addressing government pleader Manisha Lavkumar Shah, who was representing the roads and buildings (R&B) department of the state government — remarked orally, “Have you made any inquiry as to where was the ‘Kumbhkaran’?” The reference was drawn to a character from the Hindu epic Ramayana who slept for an unusually long period of time.

In response, Shah said that the state conducted an inquiry into the matter and necessary action has been taken, including the filing of charge memos, “suspensions and removals”. He further assured the bridge work would be supervised by the state’s R&B department and not by the Gondal municipality.

On this however, Chief Justice Agarwal questioned Shah, “Have you ensured that these repairs are not done in the manner in which it was done for the Morbi bridge? …make sure (of it), we will ask you to submit periodical reports with regard to repairs because if you are repairing an old structure or heritage structure, the same material has to be used, you cannot change the material. In Morbi what they did was, they replaced wooden planks with aluminum planks which resulted in the falling of the bridge, which was an engineering disaster. We will need the periodical report with regard to the material you are using which necessarily has to be the same material otherwise there won’t be any binding. So for that, you have to be very efficient. And if you don’t know who the competent person is, there are conservation architects whom you will have to take assistance of. I don’t think R&B has conservation architects, even ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) doesn’t. They are pooled in INTACH only or are working privately…”

Shah assured that they will place the relevant records before the court on the bridge and its repair or construction details by the next date of hearing, scheduled for December 12.