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Siliguri, March 5: The Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority will form a team to inspect all flyovers and bridges built and maintained by it to prevent a rerun of the VIP flyover collapse in Calcutta on Sunday.
SJDA chairman and Siliguri MLA Rudranath Bhattacharya said experts from the Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College and the public works department would be assigned the task of inspecting the bridges and the flyovers.
“After the incident in Calcutta, we cannot afford to take risk as there are bridges and flyovers in this part of the state also. So, it has been decided that experts from the Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College will be called in along with engineers of the PWD to inspect the bridges and the flyovers built by the SJDA. The team is expected to start the inspection next week,” Bhattacharya said here today.
He added: “It is not that we are taking up the exercise out of any fear. We have learnt lessons from the Calcutta incident. It is always better to prevent similar incidents here.”
In Siliguri, the SJDA had built two flyovers — over the railway tracks at Siliguri Junction and at the Siliguri Town station. The SJDA also maintains the third Mahananda bridge that connects Siliguri with North Bengal Medical College and Hospital. Apart from these, the SJDA has built and maintains a number of small bridges and culverts across Siliguri subdivision, the adjoining Rajganj block, Jalpaiguri Sadar block and Jalpaiguri town.
“All these structures would be inspected by the team of experts, who in turn would come up with recommendations. If it is noticed that immediate repairs are required, they would be taken up on a war footing,” said an SJDA official.
Bhattacharya also said the SJDA would lay the foundation stone for a tomato processing centre at Sepoypara near Jalpaiguri on March 7.
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