The safety audit of roads over bridges, foot over bridges and bridges over the pipelines comes after a section of a foot overbridge in Andheri caved in over the Western Railway tracks due to incessant rain
The railways on Tuesday said that it will carry out a safety audit of nearly 450 roads over bridges, foot over bridges and bridges over the pipelines here to detect and rectify any flaws in them. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal made the announcement in suburban Andheri where a portion of a Road Over Bridge (ROB) collapsed this morning due to heavy rains.
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The road over bridge, built in 1971, collapsed near the eastern side of the Andheri railway station and some parts of it fell on the rail tracks, disrupting train services. About five people were injured in the incident and Goyal announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh for each of them.
A joint safety audit will be conducted by the Railways, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and IIT-Bombay of the 445 ROBs, foot over bridges (FOBs) and bridges over the pipelines in Mumbai as part of efforts to improve the safety of commuters, Goyal said.
"I have spoken to the director of IIT-Bombay and he has assured all cooperation. In the next six months, all the 445 ROBs, FOBs and other bridges going above water pipelines will be inspected and a joint safety audit will be carried out in association with the BMC as well," he told reporters at the site of the incident.
The railway minister said that based on its findings, rectification of any flaws in these bridges will be taken up by his ministry on mission mode. Terming today's incident extremely unfortunate, Goyal said that he has already announced an inquiry into it by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) and has sought a report within 15 days.
Informing the reporters that hundreds of officers and employees of the Railways were involved in the restoration work on a war footing, he said, "Two lines of the Harbour corridor have become operational and we hope by 8 pm the other three lines will also become operational."
Last year in September, a stampede had broken out at the Elphinstone station killing 23 and leaving 39 injured. It was one of the biggest railway foot over bridges (FOBs) incident that the city’s lifeline ever experienced. Back then Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had ordered a structural audit of almost 110 suburban stations across the Central and Western Railway. After which the new foot-over-bridge (FOB) was built at a cost of Rs 9.85 crore and was supposed to be thrown open to the public on Tuesday.
Also Read: Andheri Bridge Collapse: Alert Motorman Applies Train Brakes In Time, Averts Tragedy
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Edited by mid-day online desk with inputs from PTI
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