After 12 Incidents in 20 Days, Bihar Rolls Out Policy to Prevent Bridge Collapse

New Delhi: After the collapse of 12 bridges in last 20 days, the Bihar government has rolled out a bridge maintenance policy, which was in the pipeline for the past 10 years.

A total of 18 years have collapsed in the last two years in Bihar.

“With state having a big number of bridges, the bridge maintenance policy would guide engineers to maintain, construct and repair bridges,” said Bihar road construction department additional chief secretary Pratyaya Amrit on Monday (July 8), reported The Indian Express.

The policy, drafted by the Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam Limited (BRPNNL), the comes at a juncture when a series of bridge collapse in the last few weeks has resulted in criticism for the the ruling Janata Dal (United)-led Nitish Kumar government.

The new policy states that, departments including road construction, water resources, and building construction are needed to issue “health cards” of bridges with records of their inspection and maintenance. This is also applicable to those bridges which were constructed from MP and MLALAD funds.

The policy adds a requirement for physical and video inspection of bridges at least twice a year.

Bihar has about 30 big bridges and 1,200 bridges that are over 60-metre long.

“There will be two routine inspections, one of which has to be a must before monsoons. If there is any desilting exercise planned, the bridge must be inspected under supervision of experts and any senior engineer of the department under control of a particular department. Each department would be sanctioned a fund devoted for maintenance of its bridges,” a senior official from the Bihar road construction department told The Indian Express.

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