The maker of the collapsed Bhagalpur bridge, SP Singla Construction, has been issued a show cause notice by the Bihar government, according to Pratyay Amrit, Additional Principal Secretary, Bihar Road Construction Department. This comes after Bihar CM Nitish Kumar rapped the company and said that the officials have instructed it to take strict action.
“A notice has been issued to SP Singla Constructions Pvt Ltd - the company involved in the bridge's construction - and given 15 days to respond as to why it should not be blacklisted," says Pratyay Amrit.
The company has been asked to explain why it should not be blacklisted by the government and penalised further. "The department has also suspended the executive engineer concerned for his failure to keep an eye on the quality of the work," added the Additional Chief Secretary.
The under-construction bridge, supposed to link Bhagalpur and Khagaria and built at a cost of Rs 1,700 crore, collapsed on Sunday following which Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and Pratyay Amrit told reporters in a press conference that the collapse was done deliberately under expert advice since structural defects were identified in the bridge. A portion of the bridge had collapsed on April 30 last year, after which IIT-Roorkee was roped in to look into the bridge. The final report is still awaited.
The bridge was scheduled to be completed by November 2019. After a delay of 3 years, the collapse of the bridge has only delayed the completion of the project.
CM Nitish Kumar voiced his displeasure over the poor quality of work and the delay in the completion of the project. “It is not being constructed correctly, that's why it is collapsing again and again. The department will look into it and action will be taken,” he said on Monday.
The construction company is also involved in other big projects such as the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project in Greater Mumbai area that would reduce the travel time from 75 minutes to 40 minutes.