The bridge collapsed in Saran.
– Photo : Amar Ujala
Expansion
The Bihar government has taken seriously the matter of collapse of six bridges one by one in Saran and Siwan within two days. The Water Resources Department has said that on July 3 and 4, six bridges collapsed in Chhadi and Gandak rivers in Siwan and Saran. On the instructions of CM Nitish Kumar, the Water Resources Department is implementing the Gandak Akali Nala (Chhadi)-Gandaki-Mahi-Ganga river linking scheme with the joint objective of making the flow of Chhadi and Gandaki rivers flowing through Gopalganj, Siwan and Saran districts uninterrupted as well as river linking scheme and Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali Abhiyan. The surplus water of the Gandak river is to be released into the Ganga river through Chhadi river, Gandaki river, Mahi (Dabra) river.
Precautionary steps were not taken to keep the bridge safe
Under this scheme, silt removal work is to be done in a length of about 170 km, 19 meters wide and average depth 03 meters. The target is to complete this scheme by March 2025. This will help in flood disaster mitigation in this area due to uninterrupted flow of Chhadi river and will also improve the aquatic ecology of this area as well as the groundwater level. It has been said by the Water Resources Department that it appears that during the implementation of the work, precautionary measures were not taken by the concerned engineers to keep the bridges and culverts located on this river safe and proper technical supervision was not done.
