The bridge over Iril
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: February 06, 2014 -

RCC Bridge collapses, five workers hurt :: Pix - Hueiyen Lanpao

The collapse of bridges constructed under the supervision of Public Works Department, Government of Manipur soon after inauguration or even before completion is nothing new in the State.

But after every such incident, the Department never failed to hurriedly convene a joint meeting of all its officers to decide on instituting a departmental inquiry to find out the cause of the collapse.

After that everything would be back to normal.

Nothing would be known about the inquiry report or what actions have been taken up against the officials or engineers responsible for the collapse of the bridge, and thus, bringing a bad name to the Department time and again.

And this has been a norm rather than an exception after every unfortunate incident of collapse of bridge, building or sinking of roads.

That is why, we have deliberately and sarcastically described the collapse of an under-construction RCC bridge over Iril River at Keirao Litan Makhong in Imphal East district on Wednesday morning as yet another feather in the ‘disgraced cap’ of the engineers and contractors of the Public Works Department.

Mind you, this is the same RCC Bridge, the photographs of which were flashed on the front pages of all the newspapers in the State on December 22, 2013 after it started developing huge cracks on its eastern retaining wall from top to bottom, apart from the wall sinking about half foot.

At that time too, the public have been given the impression that a departmental inquiry would be carried out soon to take up necessary action against the engineers and the contractors responsible the sloppy work.

But the collapse of the same bridge, which is being constructed under the supervision of the State Public Works Department at an estimated cost of over Rs 6 crores sanctioned under Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR) of the Union Ministry of DoNER, and causing injuries to at least five workers while they were trying to put a concrete layer over a 15-metre slab of the bridge, has shown that the department has not learnt any lesson nor has any intention of removing its ‘disgraced cap’.

In most cases of collapse of bridges, lack of quality control at the time of execution of the works by the contractors to whom the tasks were assigned and the negligence of the Government officials concerned to properly monitor the works while being executed are at the root causes of recurring disasters of Civil Engineering in Manipur.

This is a fact too-well known to everyone.

But the Public Works Department in the State always overlooked this fact deliberately to let the culprits go scot-free by indulging in the usual official rigmarole of instituting departmental inquiry to bury the issue for good, thus, revealing of a far more sinister nexus between the bureaucrats and the contractors with political connections in the award of work orders that might cost the limbs of innocent workers and people if not their lives.

Nothing could be more illustrative of this nexus than the present case of the disaster-prone RCC Bridge over Iril River whose contractor is said to be the younger brother of late former Minister of the State.

Now, all that we would like to say is "Thank God, the bridge was yet to be completed and inaugurated". Amen.