Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday that strict action would be taken against those found guilty in the incident. He also said the bridge that collapsed on Sunday had also caved in last year. “The bridge is not being constructed properly, and that is why it has collapsed twice since April 2022. It’s a serious matter. The department concerned has already initiated a thorough probe into it. Strict action will be taken against those found guilty,” Kumar said while talking to reporters.
“Why is it running behind schedule? I have asked the department concerned to investigate this also. The deputy CM is also monitoring the developments,” Kumar said. The 3.16-km bridge being built since 2014 collapsed twice in 14 months—first on Bhagalpur’s Sultanganj side in April 2022 and the second time on Sunday evening on the Khagaria side.
The Bihar BJP on Monday alleged that Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav was “hiding the truth” over the collapse of an under-construction bridge in the state. The saffron party slammed the RJD leader for his comment that “many structural defects” in the bridge have been pointed out by experts. The bridge over the Ganga was supposed to connect Khagaria district with Bhagalpur.
Reacting to Yadav’s remark, senior BJP leader and former state road construction department minister Nitin Nabin said, “I must say that the deputy chief minister is hiding the truth. He is not revealing the facts. When experts who inspected the bridge had already informed the government that there were serious structural defects, why did the government allow the continuation of the construction work? The department should have immediately stopped that.” Nabin also claimed that even after the matter was raised in the state assembly during the budget session in March this year, the deputy CM “did not bother to inform the House about the status of the construction work”.
The incident attracted public outrage, prompting the chief minister to order an investigation with instructions to punish those guilty of the disaster. Immediately after the incident, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, who also holds the portfolio of the Road Construction Department, said on Sunday that the state government was planning to demolish the under-construction bridge because of structural flaws.
A Haryana-based company has won the contract for the construction of the bridge, against which the BJP is now seeking action. The bridge would be the sixth on the Ganga river to connect northern Bihar with its south, reducing travel time to Sultanagnj, Khagaria, Saharsa, Madhepura, and Supaul.