Over 24 hours after a slab of an under-construction flyover on SP Ring Road at Mahemadpura collapsed on Tuesday night, AUDA which was building the flyover has not served notices to the contractor or the agency that had inspected the flyover. Instead, AUDA has written to the roads and buildings department asking it to probe the matter. The work on the flyover started in March 2019 where the contract was given to a firm named Ranjeet Buildcon and was supposed to get over by September 4, 2021. But flyover construction is yet to be completed, although work on five other flyovers and one pedestrian bridge has been finished by AUDA. Incidentally, responsibility of projects worth crores continues to be given to retired officials and consultants of AUDA.Designs of all bridges are approved by the R&B department, so it remains to be seen if the same department will find any fault in designs it has approved. In an official press release, AUDA said, “The length of Mahemadpura flyover is 853 metres, where a total of 112 precast RCC girders and two box RCC girders have been set up. Work on the girders completed on December 21 morning, and work on the 48 metre obligatory box girder stressing test started and was finished by 10 pm in the night.” The box girder, however, suddenly collapsed. There was no loss of life. As per sources in AUDA, there might be a fault in the flyover’s design made by firm Delf Consulting Engineers, or the contractor may not have worked as per the proposed design. This might be so because, while the 48-metre span was being fitted, 24 cables had to be attached to it. However, the girder fell down after 23 cables had been fitted and the 24th was being fitted, AUDA sources said. This could be due to poor quality of the cable. AUDA CEO A B Gor said, “We have written a letter to the R&B department regarding the Mahemadpura bridge collapse. They will collect samples from the spot and file a report. After that only it will be decided whether notices will be issued or not.”

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