BMC Didn’t Study CST Foot Overbridge Report Fully: Chief Engineer

The CST foot overbridge collapsed on 14 March and killed six people and injured 31 others.

A foot overbridge near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) railway station in Mumbai collapsed on Thursday, 14 March.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@nawabmalikncp)

The Bombay Municipal Corporation, on Friday 5 April sort of admitted its negligence towards the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) foot overbridge that crashed last month and claimed 6 lives while injuring 31 others, according to a Times of India report.

The report said that at the standing committee meeting, the BMC said on Thursday, 4 April that it had not fully studied the structural audit report of the bridge submitted in September 2018.

The report quoted the bridges department chief as saying that when corporators pointed out that while the report summary said that the foot overbridge was in good condition, its detailed conditional assessment mentioned cracks in the parapet/railing, staircase being broken, concrete slabs having been corroded and beams being exposed.

The report, according to TOI had recommended a non-destructive test to asses the residual strength of the steel structure and a few tests to ascertain the concrete’s strength and quality. However, none of these tests was conducted by the BMC.

BMC Chief engineer Sanjay Darade said that Professor DD Desai's Associates Engineering Consultants were tasked with auditing 80 bridges and foot overbridges but their report was not studied properly by BMC engineers.

He further told TOI that all the information has been passed on to the police.

The foot overbridge crashed on 14 March and killed six people, injuring a further 31.

(With inputs from The Times of India)