By Neeraj Kumar
Patna: Taking the incidents of frequent bridge and culvert collapses in Bihar seriously, the state government has suspended 15 engineers on Friday. Among the suspended engineers, 11 are from the Water Resources Department and 4 from the Rural Works Department. An explanation has also been sought from two engineers. Additionally, the agency that prepared the Detailed Project Report (DPR) has been blacklisted.
Based on the investigation report, the Water Resources Department has suspended 11 of its engineers, including two executive, four assistant, and five junior engineers. It has also been decided to halt any further work by the current contractor for the time being.
On Friday, Development Commissioner Chaitanya Prasad stated that the six bridges and culverts that collapsed on the Gandaki and Chhadi rivers in Saran and Siwan districts belonged to the Water Resources Department. All of them were more than 30 years old. The suspended engineers include two executive engineers Amit Anand and Kumar Brajesh, four assistant engineers Rajkumar, Chandramohan Jha, Simran Anand, and Neha Rani, and five junior engineers Mohd. Majid, Ravi Kumar Rajneesh, Rafiul Hoda Ansari, Ratanesh Gautam, and Prabhat Ranjan. This action was taken based on the report provided by the flying squad after their investigation. Departmental action will also be taken against all of them.
The Development Commissioner highlighted that the departmental investigation found that during the work, the concerned engineers did not take precautionary measures to keep the bridges on the river safe and failed to provide technical supervision. The investigation also revealed negligence at the contractor’s level. Consequently, while the engineers have been suspended, the entire cost of the new bridges to be built in place of the demolished ones will be recovered from the concerned contractor.
Meanwhile, Additional Chief Secretary of the Rural Works Department, Deepak Singh, reported that three bridges under his department had collapsed. Following an investigation, the department has taken action against six engineers, suspending four, while two others were already suspended.
