Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Nov 22: A safety audit carried out in five zones of the state at the request of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami revealed that up to 36 bridges in Uttarakhand were unsafe for traffic.
Officials said that the PWD department has handed over the safety audit report of 2618 bridges out of 3262 in the state to the government. According to RK Sudhanshu, principal secretary of the PWD Department, the government has received the safety audit report.
“Instructions have been given by the government to set up a bridge bank so that new bridges can be constructed in time,” he said
As the government was preparing to replace the outdated and unsafe bridges with new ones, authorities were given three weeks to submit the audit report.
The Public Works Department (PWD) carried out the safety audit in accordance with the instructions given by the Chief Minister (CM) on November 3 following the collapse of the Morbi suspension bridge.
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On October 30, a cable suspension bridge collapsed in the Gujarati town of Morbi, killing at least 135 people and injuring over 100 more. At the scene of the 143-year-old Morbi bridge collapse, the Indian Coast Guard, Indian Navy, and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), along with the local government and other agencies, conducted search and rescue operations.
In July, heavy rains caused an under-construction bridge in the Narkota area of the Rishikesh-Badrinath highway to collapse, severely injuring over half a dozen construction workers.
