Eastern Freeway accident technical fault: Probe panel

According to the report submitted by the three-member committee to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA),the accident took place as the leg on which the launching girder is placed lost balance due to a loose jack. This caused the launching girder — used to place 13 concrete segments between two piers — to bend,resulting in the crashing of some of the segments.

“As per the interim report,it is a technical fault. We are expecting the final report by August 31 as per the extended deadline,” said Rahul Asthana,metropolitan commissioner at the MMRDA. The final report will explain the reason why the jack was loose and caused the leg to bend,he added.

The interim report said that the contractor,Simplex Infrastructure,had checked the launching girder being used at the time of the accident in April itself. Meanwhile,the committee has given certain guidelines to the contractor to be followed while undertaking launching work.

Within days of the accident,the MMRDA had appointed a three-member technical committee under the chairmanship of Ravi Sinha,a professor from the civil engineering department of IIT-Bombay. The other two members of the committee are S B Tamsekar,chief engineer at the Public Works Department and P R K Murthy,head of transport and communications at the MMRDA.

The committee was initially asked to submit a report within 15 days,but was later given an extension until the end of this month.

The MMRDA expects to complete Eastern Freeway from Orange Gate to Anik and four lanes of the Anik Panjarpol Link Road,including one tunnel,by the end of December of January. The other four lanes of the Anik Panjarpol Link Road along with the second tunnel will take a couple of months after that.