A tragedy waiting to happen?

Yadav was at the spot when the accident happened on Sunday morning. “I was walking towards the site and waved to a few labourers atop the structure,” he said. “Suddenly I heard a rumbling and within seconds,the whole structure came crashing down. All I could think of was Anshuman,the engineer,who was sitting right underneath. He was drinking water.”

Every local vendor and resident seemed to be aware about the cracked pillar too. A tea vendor,Dilshad,said: “When complaints were made,some repair was done,however,nothing concrete happened.”

Asked about the crack on pillar 67,the MD of DMRC,E Sreedharan,who had called a high-level inquiry into the incident,said: “It was said to have been only a surface crack but even that should have been investigated.” Work on that part was stopped for two months,after the defects were detected four months ago. Sreedharan,however,owned responsibility for restarting the work.

THE PROBE

A team of four experts have been given ten days to investigate the matter and prepare a report. The team comprises Prof AK Nagpaul of the Civil Engineering department of IIT Delhi,Prof BR Bose from Delhi College of Engineering,an expert on structural engineering,Steve Lowry,Project Director,General Consultants (a group of foreign consultants),DMRC and Rajan Kataria,Chief Engineer,Design,DMRC.

“The committee will inspect the design,workmanship,material used and method of construction,” said Anuj Dayal,spokesperson,DMRC. Plus,a fresh round of inspections will be conducted into all the under-construction Metro corridors “before any construction proceeds,” Sreedharan said.

Second accident for Gammon

A leading construction company in India,Gammon India Limited was established in 1919. The firm,which is also constructing Metro line on Ashok Nagar to Sector-32 stretch and part of the Indraprastha-Noida line,built the line between Tilak Nagar and Dwarka.

The first accident for Gammon was reported on September 9,2007,in which two people died when eight pre-cast blocks of a flyover in Panjagutta,Hyderabad,caved in. A committee appointed by the Andhra Pradesh government had found negligence on part of the company.

Though DMRC did not want to hold the company at fault prima facie,its chief E Sreedharan said following the Vikas Marg mishap,the contractor,AFCONS,was blacklisted.

Some of the projects by Gammon include the Mahatma Gandhi Setu in Patna,Ganga Bridge at Buxar,Narmada Bridge at Gujarat and Delhi-Noida bridge project.