Following Bridge Collapse In West Bengal, CM Mamata Banerjee Says She Is Clueless About What To Do 

Mamata Banerjee on Thursday (6 September) announced that almost 20 bridges in and around Kolkata have crossed their “expiry date”, and will undergo inspection and repair on an immediate time-frame, based on the feedback provided by experts, NDTV has reported.

On 4 September, a bridge had collapsed in Kolkata situated on the diamond harbour road.

Speaking at a press conference, she informed the media that the government has set up a high power committee to identify the agency in charge of the bridge. She had no comments to offer about the safety audit of Majerhat bridge.

Some of the bridges including Satragachi, Belgachi and Sealdah are marked as unsafe at the moment. The Public Works, Irrigation and Metropolitan Development Agency (Kolkata) are setting up their committees and proceeding to repair the bridges under separate watches.

Banerjee announced that the government will be banning 20-wheeler trucks in Kolkata and will have a strict eye on small trucks which are overloaded, and temporary suspension of the metro rail construction at Majerhat until the forensics are done.

CM’s ministers went on to blame the metro construction ever since the collapse of the Majerhat bridge, but however, Rail Vikas Nigam officially said that there cannot be a link established between the two since the foundation work at the site ended about a year ago.

The Kolkata Port Trust has been redirected to use rail wagons or Roros (flat sailing vessels that carry cars across rivers) to transport heavy machinery.

Posta flyover, which killed nearly 30 people a couple of years ago, is still lying in a precarious state. NDTV reported her saying, “We have a report from IIT Kharagpur. They say if you build the flyover, it will be dangerous for adjoining buildings. If you break the flyover, the buildings will fall down. What are we to do?”