Surat, 17 September 2014

Surat Municipal Corporation(SMC) is today holding a meeting with the state government in Gandhinagar seeking speedy proof checking of 22 ongoing bridge projects. Surat Municipal Commissioner Torvane is attending the meeting chaired by Urban development department principal secretary GR Aloria.

This is actually a monthly review meeting, but bridge issue is likely to dominate the meeting.

Surat witnessed collapse of a slab of under-construction Athwa lines bridge. 10 laborers were killed in this incident. Probe report pointed out that faulty design was responsible for the incident. Probe report also pointed out that no proof-checking of design was done. As a corrective step, the state government later decided that all designs of ongoing or future bridge projects will be proof checked by Gandhinagar based design circle of government’s public works department.

Due to this new rule, construction of 22 ongoing bridge projects has been stalled. The SMC team including Mayor and Commissioner is demanding either speedy proof check by Government of Gujarat or permission to third-party proof check procedure to SMC.