The residents of Baleswar besides questioning the quality of work of an under construction bridge that caved in the Budhabalanga river also demanded a probe into incident that occurred last evening.

A centering portion  of the bridge on the river caved in like packs of cards.

The passersby while sighted the collapse of centering, some of them captured the scene in their mobile phones which went viral in social media.

All the materials used for centering while fell in the river water, they were swept away.

The department officials besides refuting  poor quality of works maintained that due to sudden gushing of water into the river, the poles on which the centering rested dislodged causing the collapse.

As a precautionary measure apprehending  heavy rainfalls during Amphan, water from the reservoirs  of Kala and Sunei dams were released.

The  surge of water flow into the river caused the incident, said Executive Engineer, Works, Maheswar Mohanty.

“We are preparing for the  casting   after completing the centering procedure. About 35 metre centering was done before casting. But due to surge of water in the river the poles got dislodged causing the incident. Again works would be resumed sooner the intensity of flow of water reduced,” observed Mohanty.  

It may be noted  the bridge  construction was undertaken  parallel  to an existing century old British era bridge, known as ‘Loha Polo’ as the latter  became  dilapidated and unsafe. On the Loha bridge  while heavy vehicles plying has been banned, this new bridge construction began with an  estimation of Rs 28 crore following tendering process in 2015-16.

The target date of completion while was 2018, yet it underwent time as well as cost overrun. With the revised estimation, the work was under progress and the department had  targeted to complete the bridge by end of this year.

Due to delay of completion of the bridge, the four-wheeler plying  while was prohibited  on the bride, it was barricaded from either end.  As such one has to take a diversion of about 12 km through Remuna Golai to reach Fuladi Square on NH-60.