India Today: National: Wednesday, July 04, 2018.
After Mumbai
witnessed yet another railway bridge collapse that has injured five people,
including two in serious condition, Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Sachin
Sawant has tweeted an RTI reply of February 2016 by the Divisional Railway
Manager Office, Mumbai Central that says all the bridges in Churchgate-Virar
section are safe and old brides are replaced before they become unsafe.
Earlier
today, part of a bridge that connects Andheri East and Andheri West railway
stations on the Western line of the Mumbai suburban railway from Churchgate to
Virar collapsed.
The collapse
has left overhead wires exposed on tracks, traffic on the bridge has been
cordoned off and trains have either been cancelled or diverted. There were no
trains below the bridge otherwise it could have been a serious incident.
The RTI
reply, answered to Shri Sharad Yadav, says, "All the bridges in
Churchgate-Virar section are inspected once a year by Senior Section Engineer
and Assistant Divisional Engineer. The defects notified are rectified
immediately or within a time frame, depending on the nature of defect. All the
bridges in Churchgate-Virar section are safe. The old bridges are replaced in
programmed way before they become unsafe. The work of repairing and
reconstruction is planned each year after inspection of the bridge. There will
be no loss of life due to unsafe bridges as traffic is permitted only after
making the bridge safe."
Calling
maximum mis-governance by the Narendra Modi government, he says the Railway
Minister of India is responsible for the bridge collapse while the Railway
Minister Piyush Goyal has tweeted that he is monitoring the situation in Mumbai
and the work is being done towards restoring the harbour line operations on by
around 2 pm.
Quoting last
year's Elphinstone Road bridge tragedy that had killed 23 commuters and injured
39 others, Sachin says that the incident was also completely due to the
careless approach of railways and even that tragedy also didn't seem to change
the attitude of govt.
Though
Mumbai's Western Line and the city's municipal corporation (BMC) are
questioning each other about the heavy waterlogging these days, the Elphinstone
Road bridge collapse last year was again blamed to be a result of heavy rains
and bridge collapse rumours by the Western Line.
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