Several prominent bridges and subways in the city — such as Princess Street bridge, the CST subway, Metro subway and Churchgate subway — will soon be inspected to check their structural stability.
Several prominent bridges and subways in the city — such as Princess Street bridge, the CST subway, Metro subway and Churchgate subway — will soon be inspected to check their structural stability. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has named three consultants who would carry out a conditional survey of these bridges.
The move comes in the wake of the horrific Mahad bridge mishap, in which 42 people disappeared, with only 29 bodies having been found thus far. Following this tragedy, the state government had decided to inspect all the bridges in the state. Now, on similar lines, the BMC, too, will be carrying out a survey of all the bridges under its jurisdiction.
According to civic officials, there are 314 bridges of various types under the civic body’s jurisdiction. Excluding newly built ones and those that are slated to go in for reconstruction, 274 bridges would have conditional surveys carried out on them. For this, the BMC will spend Rs 2.18 crore on three consultants — one each for the island city and the western and eastern suburbs.
Out of the 274 bridges, the highest number (137) is in the western suburbs, followed by the island city (77) and the eastern suburbs (60). Of them, 115 are bridges on rivers or nullahs, 40 are railway over-bridges (ROBs), 12 are flyovers, 44 are foot over-bridges (FOB), 35 are railway pedestrian bridges, nine are traffic subways and 19 are pedestrian subways.
The BMC has decided to appoint M/s DD Desai’s Associated Engineering Consultants in the island city at a cost of Rs 63 lakh. The contracts for the western suburbs and eastern suburbs have been allotted to M/s CV Kand Consultans (Rs 1.05 crore) and M/s Structwell Designers and Consultants (Rs 49 lakh).
An official from the corporation’s bridges department said: “The consultants have been given a period of eight months to carry out the conditional survey, in which they are expected to study the load-carrying capacity of the bridges, their length and width, bearings, protective works, current status, designs, earlier repairs, use of space under the bridges, among others.”
