New Delhi: Rs 75 lakhs worth in bonds were bought on a single day, May 10, 2019 by SP Singla Constructions Private Limited.
This is the company that has the dubious distinction of being in the news for two bridge collapses in Bihar.
The under-construction bridge, to link Bhagalpur and Khagaria in Bihar first collapsed on April 30, 2023 and then a second time on June 4.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar then spoke about the poor quality of work and the delay in the completion of the project, as per news reports at the time. “It is not being constructed correctly, that’s why it is collapsing again and again. The department will look into it and action will be taken,” he is quoted as saying by Business Today then.
Navbharat Times then termed it as a “symbol of corruption” in Bihar. NDTV termed the fall of the four-lane bridge as one like a “house of cards”
The bridge in Bihar was scheduled to be completed by November 2019. Reports said that after a delay of three years, the collapse of the bridge has only delayed the completion of the project.
The company told the Patna high court in August that it was “ready to rebuild the entire 3.16-kilometre-long bridge and bear its estimated cost of about Rs 1,710 crore.” There has been no word of further action on the company by authorities.
It is not clear yet who the recipient of the electoral bonds bought in May, 2019 could have been. It was in the middle of elections, the BJP was in power at the centre at the time, and a JD(U)-BJP renewed government in office in Patna too.
The company on its website boasts of having completed 27 bridges over rivers across India. It cites the four-laning of Haridwar Bypass Package 1 in Uttrakhand, the construction of new two-lane bridge across the Brahmaputra at Jogighopa in Assam and the construction of the four-lane Signature Bridge between Okha and Beyt Dwarka in Gujarat, as among other works in progress.
