State to decide fate of Vivekananda Road flyover

The state government will decide whether to repair the damaged portion of Vivekananda Road flyover or discard the project, only after getting a report on the causes that led to collapse of a portion of the flyover on March 31.

Two committees were set up to probe into the cause of collapse and to fix responsibility of the persons whose negligence had led to the accident.

The first committee led by the chief secretary Basudeb Bandopadhyay submitted its report to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday. She is studying the report and action will be taken against the persons involved.

A portion of Vivekananda Flyover collapsed at the intersection of Rabindra Sarani and K K Tagore Road killing 27 people and leaving more than 80 people injured. The incident took place right at 12.40 pm on March 31.

A span of around 150 metre of the under-construction flyover collapsed after steel girders, rested on pillar number four that was situated right at the intersection of the two roads, had slipped. People were trapped under the steel girders. Many were rescued and taken to hospital while some died under the debris. It had not even been possible to bring body of a person from under a steel girder even after a day of the incident.

Jawans of the Indian Army and National Disaster Response Force were called in.

Subsequently, police lodged complaint against the construction company IVRCL on charges of murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and arrested its top officials.

The state government is now waiting for the second report which is likely to be submitted in the near future and then will decide the fate of the flyover. It may be recalled that when the construction of the flyover began, there were protests from local people who urged the then Left Front government to cancel the design and start the project afresh. Some of them alleged that because of the wall of the flyover they failed to open their windows. But the Left Front government did not listen to them and went ahead with the project.

Both the Maa flyover and Vivekananda Road flyover started during the Left Front regime. The purpose of this flyover was to ease the Howrah station-bound traffic. Both the projects were funded by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. There was a delay in starting the construction and the state government has decided that if the design is found to be faulty it will discard the project.